Into the Inferno
by Don't Touch My Walkman
Summary: AU. In another world, Ty Lee is the one who is broken, and Azula is the one tasked to fix her. Azula/Ty Lee.
1. Ice Water

**Into the Inferno  
**_by Don't Touch My Walkman  
_**Warnings: **Lemons, violence, implied rape and torture, and some dark themes.  
This is intended to be a reverse Ty Lee healing Azula. Instead, Azula will be forced to heal Ty Lee.  
_This turns into a romance, I swear. But like moonflowers, this Tyzula grows best in partial shadows._

* * *

_I felt for the tormented whirlwinds  
Damned for their carnal sins  
Committed when they let their passions rule their reason.  
Dante Alighiere, The Divine Comedy_

* * *

**Chapter One: Ice Water**

* * *

It was one hundred and seven years after Sozin killed the airbenders, and his great granddaughter was currently finishing the last of her work in what once was the Earth Kingdom before she could return home to the Fire Nation.

She was looking forward to the ability to return to her bed, to her blissful familial life sans Zuko and to royal matters. She had to admit she somewhat preferred the chase of hunting down rebels and searching for Zuko, but she did miss having legions of slaves, hot food and a soft bed.

Azula was standing in the large penitentiary building in Yu Dao in her full armor, looking more intimidating than ever. Soldiers scuttled around her and Mai was toying with a switchblade as if the fact that they busted the rebels most clandestine hideout was boring. To her, it probably was.

"Who was in charge?" Azula asked as she saw the prisoners being pulled into view.

"Zuko's girlfriend, apparently," Mai sighed, studying her nails. She put actual effort into sounding disinterested about Zuko, because triggering Azula's frightening amounts of jealousy was not something she was in the mood to deal with.

"His girlfriend?" Azula cocked an eyebrow.

"Water peasant," Mai replied with a careless shrug. "_Waterbender_, actually. Not a bad one. Not bad looking, if you... well..."

Azula just smirked at her. "If I well...?"

"Not a conversation to have in public," Mai replied quietly and Azula just shook her head. She was quite eager to get home to more interesting activities in the bedroom, but that did not mean everyone in the vicinity had to know that.

With a slow examination of the pretty Water Tribe girl, Azula thought she liked Mai's offer. It would probably be better than slaves or scared noble girls. If Mai was interested in the first place, of course, but Azula did not blame her due to her delicate condition of late.

"Not Zuko, though," Azula sighed, looking up and down and deciding which of the soldiers she would execute for letting her brother get away. Mai bit her lip, chewing with her canine tooth and savoring the pain. She did not want Zuko to be found, for some inexplicable reason.

But Ozai and Azula were her life now, and Zuko was their enemy. She did not quite understand why they had such resentment, Azula in particular. Yet, Mai valued her life more than the life of her childhood crush, and, therefore, kept her mouth shut.

Mai made a choking sound and Azula whipped around to face her. Their exchanged glance said a thousand words as Azula's gaze was guided to an unconscious body of one of the rebels being locked in with the others.

_The unconscious body of a girl Azula and Mai had not seen since they were young._

She was quite stunned by the fact as she watched the prisoners being roughly loaded into crates. It took her a moment to even recognize Ty Lee, seeing as she would expect her in some spa or circus or fortune teller's summer camp, or some other bullshit like that. Not in the fresh catch of rebels from the successful invasion and collection.

Azula received the good glimpse when a girl clinging to Ty Lee was viciously ripped away from her, kicking. The plants around the dark skinned girl suddenly were dry, and she lashed tendrils of water onto the legs of the muscular man holding her, lashing his skin and making him curse and drop her.

_Mai had an incredible point; it would be sexy to dominate her._

The cobalt eyes of the rebel lit with excitement, as if she could escape, but she was quickly pinned by projectile knives. Azula smirked faintly at her stepmother and lover, whom set her heel on the rebel's gut and just looked at her.

"I don't think so," Mai said in a voice devoid of the pleasure she felt. And with that she turned to the guards and ordered, "Keep her separately from the others. I don't like her _troublemaking_."

_You don't like that she fucked Zuko, _Azula thought, but she liked to live in denial and therefore kept it to herself.

Azula's eyes were entirely fixated on Ty Lee, wondering how this could have happened.

It must be wrong, she must be imagining things.

* * *

Azula decided to have her questions answered by an interrogation. They were on the ship to the Fire Nation, prisoners held below deck, some going to the Boiling Rock, others to different locations. It was an excellent bust of the frustrating rebellion... but Azula did not catch her brother.

Ty Lee was led into the office room, drowsily looking around at the maps on the walls and the chair the masked soldiers shackled her to. She looked up, stunned to see Azula, as if she had no idea. As if _she _were the surprised one.

"Azula!" Ty Lee declared in shock, looking at the princess. Azula was pacing around her, her movements serpentine, like a slender dragon draped in sharp metal, claws included. Ty Lee felt slightly unnerved by the way Azula was looking at her. "It's good to see you."

They examined each other for a moment. So much had changed since they were thirteen. Azula looked stunning, and Ty Lee was beautiful, a gorgeous young woman. Their eyes wandered to places they probably should not have.

Passing notes in class and holding hands in the park did not translate to adult romance. Ty Lee had been in more strange beds than she could count to make do in the Earth Kingdom, and Azula had gone through a peculiar sexual metamorphosis with Mai. There was still that look, like anyone would have when they laid eyes on their first love for the first time in years.

_Eight years. _

But the analysis of each other ended when Azula clasped her hands behind her back, breathed in and began to speak, her tongue still as silvery as ever and her eyes still a glittering gold.

"So this is why you declined my invitation to come home?" Azula purred, picking at her nails with a loud scratching sound that made Ty Lee's heart palpitate. "You decided to join the _rebels_. Ty Lee, you were a well blooded Fire Nation woman. Surely, you didn't think my father was abolishing circuses along with earthbending, did you?"

Ty Lee looked at her feet for a moment, unsure what to do. "It's... it's a long story."

"And an interesting one, I'm sure," Azula purred mockingly and Ty Lee could not quite make out what was odd about her tone. "Well, we have plenty of time. Start talking."

The acrobat gulped in response and Azula stared at her intently. Her first crush, giddy moments, pushing her to the ground because she did cartwheels better, pushing her out of a tree when Ty Lee taught her how to climb one for the first time. The memories rushed to Azula before she could stop them.

It burned like betrayal to know that Ty Lee was fighting _against _the Fire Nation. The country that gave her everything, that by birth she swore fealty to and gave her pledge to every day.

_And you swore fealty to me as well, _Azula thought, knowing that it was not her nation she was sorry for, it was herself. She always was a selfish girl, after all.

"Azula, I don't want to do this," Ty Lee said softly, batting her eyelashes.

The princess inhaled sharply. "Well people in the Boiling Rock want ice water but you don't see me with a pitcher, do you?"

Ty Lee could only see malice in Azula's eyes, maybe a little bit of pain, somewhere beneath the molten surface. She supposed she had no choice but to come clean; there was no easy way to get out of it.

"I wound up with the rebels like most people do, I guess. Desperation," Ty Lee said, wishing Azula would stop staring at her like that. "The Comet didn't leave me with a lot of options. I was stranded and I wound up getting taken in by this boy─"

Why Azula breathed in like she just got jabbed by a needle, Ty Lee did not understand. The princess was always confusing, but she seemed stranger still.

"This boy, anyway, and I slowly got involved in the rebels. Well, first I was a drug runner, but _then _I got involved with the rebels," Ty Lee said, swallowing.

"Do you even know the meaning of loyalty? To your country," Azula said haughtily and Ty Lee chewed on her lip. "The worst kind of traitor is the kind who flips just because it's _convenient_. I'm more forgiving of my brother. At least he did it out of revenge for my father burning and banishing him. You just... felt like it."

Azula turned away and Ty Lee loathed that she could not see her face or try to figure out what she was thinking or intending to do. It was beyond unnerving, and Ty Lee did not know what to make of it.

Ty Lee cleared her throat and said quietly, "I didn't want to hurt anybody."

"Well, I don't want to hurt you," Azula said sweetly and Ty Lee was not stupid enough to not predict what she would say yes. "But what was it I just said about ice water?"

Ty Lee knew that it was rhetorical as Azula slowly turned around, walking towards her prisoner. The princess glanced at the guards at the door and waved for them to leave her. They quickly obeyed as Ty Lee's eyes widened further.

"Do you remember the day we first met?" Azula asked softly and Ty Lee did not know what to make of it.

"Of course," Ty Lee replied honestly. "It's kind of hard to forget."

_Princess Azula was eight years old and the school day had just ended. Soldiers were waiting to pick her up, Mai was still holding both of their bags, but Azula had something to do. Something she felt was imperative. _

_Azula followed her to the bathroom. It was likely unwise to go after the girl she made cry and run away, but she felt it necessary. Tormenting the dumb little noble girl from the colonies was entertaining while it lasted, but Azula felt something alien and new in her gut twist when she saw Ty Lee run away sobbing, her perpetual grin wiped from her face._

_She pushed open the door of the room, which was decorated with incense and beautiful paintings of tsunamis and forests. Ty Lee was there, as Azula had overheard from the passing laughing girls, and Azula bit on her lip as she realized she had no idea what she was supposed to say._

_ "Please go away," Ty Lee whispered, her voice constricted with emotion._

_ "I didn't..." Azula began and she breathed in slowly. Agni, she had no idea what she was doing. "Do you want to be my friend?"_

_ Ty Lee made a sound between a laugh and a sob. "Are you serious? You-you've been... you... for _months _and then you..."_

_ Azula was stunned speechless. No one had ever spoken to her like that. And, granted, her only friend was Mai, whom she only knew because she was engaged to Zuko or something. Azula had never bothered to make friends because people were forced to be cordial to her because her grandfather was Fire Lord._

_ "It's just an offer. Take it or leave it," Azula replied airily with a shrug._

_ She walked away and just as her fingers touched the door, Ty Lee said, "Yeah. I'll be your friend."_

"You know, they say when a girl pulls on your braid she likes you, and if she makes you cry hysterically in a bathroom, she loves you," Azula said with a tiny smirk and Ty Lee furrowed her brow in utter confusion.

Ty Lee was not sure if she was going to be tortured or kissed.

"So you love me?" Ty Lee blurted out before deciding she wanted to throw herself overboard. Her cheeks flushed bright red.

"No," Azula said sweetly. "But I don't have to."

Azula leaned forward and her lips grazed against Ty Lee's. It made Ty Lee feel a surge of fear, the desire to escape. The princess was on her lap before she could do anything, her hands and feet bound, deserted, stranded, being shipped back to the Fire Nation as a traitor.

And there was Azula's fingers stroking her neck, running down her skin and sliding down her sleeves with such fluid motions. Ty Lee did not respond, her eyes closed as Azula's lips touched her cheekbone. Her hands slipped lower, and lower, and Ty Lee felt a most unwelcome burning heat.

Ty Lee swallowed as Azula's nails scratched a straight line down her navel and then moved to her thighs, digging in the inside and dragging down. Whimper, Ty Lee could not help but whimper.

Her hands abandoned the borderline mutilation, sliding to Ty Lee's breast as she dug her hips in deeper, pressed against her, the arousal throbbing. But as she caressed her and grinded against her, Azula felt slightly ill.

Not yet, not yet.

She got up, leaving Ty Lee both in pain and craving in ways that hurt on every level.

"We'll pick this up later," Azula said breathlessly, the shame twisting inside of her chest.

Ty Lee just watched Azula walk away as she pressed her sore thighs together.

* * *

After the interrogation that was more of an exercise in absurdity, Azula walked slowly to her cabin, where Mai was currently suppressing vomit, curled into a tight ball with her knees touching her chin.

"How did it go?" Mai asked, realizing how damned difficult talking was when she felt about to hurl up her insides.

"As terribly as you would imagine, of course." Azula lay down beside Mai and pouted her tangerine lips. "I want her, Mai."

"She's our prisoner already," Mai replied, confused by what Azula meant.

"No, I want her personally. Fuck the Boiling Rock," Azula said with a level of conviction that made Mai's muscles tense in discomfort.

Mai ran her fingers across her lips and studied Azula closely. Of course she would be more hurt about Ty Lee than anyone else; it wounded her enough that Ty Lee left her to join the circus in the first place. Her disappearance was something that Azula did not forget, no matter how much her father wanted her to. Ty Lee showing up surrounded by Azula's worst enemies did not do wonders for the princess's copious abandonment issues.

"What do you plan to do with her?" Mai inquired, gripping the blankets as her head feels as if it is spinning.

"Take her home. Keep her as a pet," Azula said and Mai wondered if she was supposed to laugh before she realized that Azula was completely serious. _Oh, Agni._

"I don't know what your father would think about that," Mai said casually, trying not to care. It perturbed her that she _did _care about what happened to Ty Lee. Mai prided herself on not caring about anything or anyone, and on the occasions she found herself with emotions towards a person, she just felt queasy.

And now she was doubly queasy. Morning sickness was the worst misnomer she had ever heard.

"You sound like a mother," Azula said, her lip twisting with disgust.

"Ick. You're right," Mai replied even more flatly than usual. "We can't have sex tonight at all. It feels incestuous now."

Azula paused for a moment and scratched the bridge of her nose. "Well, it _is _incestuous... technically."

"I'm your stepmother. It doesn't count," Mai said and Azula just shrugged. And then Mai sighed. "Ty Lee is going to be the death of you if you get obsessed─"

"I have never _obsessed _over something so _petty_. I simply want to set an example of my standards for loyalty," Azula purred with utter confidence radiating from her. Mai buried her face in the scratchy pillows and decided it was not worth the effort.

"Remind me not to cross you," Mai breathed. "Can you bring me a bucket?"

Azula nodded and rose from the bed.

* * *

Azula left her bed and walked onto the deck of the ship as the sun was rising. They were approaching the Fire Nation; she could tell from the wind. She had spent enough time fighting in the Earth Kingdom on her father's bidding to have a sixth sense about these things.

It was somewhat disturbing to her that he simply tossed out his only heir, and she supposed sending Mai with her was just to make it even more risky. Perhaps he had some sort of contempt for his own mortality; Azula did not know.

If he had known Mai was pregnant he probably would not have, Azula reminded herself. She did not find out until they were already at the Pohai Stronghold. Her father had some shreds of humanity in him, at least towards those who were loyal to him.

_Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty_... and that was why Azula dreamt all of last night about Zuko and Ty Lee.

She inhaled the sun, touching two fingers together in the stale, cold morning at sea.

And she let herself be controlled by the cold blooded fire, the lightning dancing on her fingertips. It cleared her mind, she was no longer ruled by her passions and emotions towards a girl who likely was not the girl that Azula fell in love with as a dumb adolescent.

This was all overcomplicated.

It would make more sense once she could have the advice of her father. More sense when Ty Lee was in the palace and Azula could decide what she wanted to do with her. Then again, the distraction of the little prince or princess Ozai knew nothing of might make things more difficult.

Azula just let the lightning take over her body and soul.

There was time.


	2. Be Our Guest

_**AN: **__The line about houseplants in the first scene is not mine; it's from electric gurrl's post about writing IC Azula, and used with permission, because it's pretty much the most beautiful thing I've ever read. Also, thank you everyone so much for the reviews and follows and all! I really am glad you guys like it and I hope it lives up to expectations._

* * *

**Chapter Two: **Be Our Guest

* * *

Azula visited Ty Lee only once before the ship laid eyes on the Gates of Azulon. She did not know what to do at that point, and so she just helped her out of the cell and took her down the hall, ignoring the hesitant and worried looks from the soldiers on board.

Ty Lee's usually light and graceful steps were heavy and she was limping, Azula imagined from the gashes in her thighs. _No_, Azula was not going to let Ty Lee die of some sort of infection of _worse _cease trusting in Azula at all before this could be figured out.

Mai was stunned when Azula opened the door and brought her new pet inside, as Ty Lee glanced between them nervously as Azula gestured towards the bed.

"Are you two... going to...?" Ty Lee stammered in disbelief and Mai made a sound that was something like laughter, something like disgust.

"No. I'm _going _to clean and dress your wounds before I bring you to my father. We're arriving in three days time and I don't treat my... guests, so disrespectfully," Azula purred and now Mai squinted at her in disbelief instead of Ty Lee.

Guests. She called her a _guest _and that to Ty Lee was mildly disturbing. But the acrobat forced the thoughts and doubts and worries out of her mind and lay down on the bed as Azula demanded. She was not stupid enough to deny an order from the princess, even orders given when she was eight years old.

Now, now Azula was much more intimidating.

"Mai, distract her. This probably will hurt," Azula purred, although she smirked with such... sadistic pleasure. Ty Lee knew she was never a very nice girl. Cruelty and malice were her natural state of being, and other people might as well have been house plants to her.

Princess Azula was not exactly notorious for her healing hands, so Ty Lee did not know what to expect. Mai examined Azula for a moment, her only thought, _Yet another thing I am an accomplice to_, and she sat down beside Ty Lee.

"So, what happened to you, anyway? I kind of... thought you were dead," Mai said and Ty Lee thought perhaps there was a little emotion attached to her presumption of Ty Lee's death. "I sure as fuck didn't think you'd wind up a traitor."

Ty Lee averted her eyes. There was silence and then she felt the burning alcohol on her cuts and shrieked.

"I said _distract _her," Azula snarled at Mai and the Fire Lady could only roll her amber eyes.

"Mmm, okay, if not that story, uh..." Mai genuinely looked stumped as to what she could say to Ty Lee. And Ty Lee did not blame her.

Another sting of alcohol and a whimper.

"Reminisce or something," Azula snapped in utter frustration and Mai sighed.

"Remember when Azula pushed you out of a tree?"

"Ouuch!" shrieked Ty Lee in utter agony.

"Sorry, I spilled it," Azula said sweetly and Ty Lee continued whimpering.

"That was definitely intentional," Mai sighed.

"Do you have anything else? Any injuries from our raid?" Azula inquired, sitting down on the bed beside Ty Lee. It was only the that Mai got a decent look at the wounds Azula had wrapped bandages around. _Nail marks._

Well that explained a lot.

* * *

The ship arrived in the military docks; that way no civilians would get involved or see anyone who happened to be taken to the Capitol. Treason was most often addressed here, given that a disturbing portion of the rebels were from the Fire Nation. The ship would leave for the Boiling Rock afterwards, for the remainder of the prisoners, and interrogations would take place in both Caldera and the prison.

Ty Lee watched as she was brought in chains towards the throne room. The other prisoners had been delivered in a variety of different locations. She locked eyes with Katara as she was taken away alone, isolated. She pleaded that it was _not _her who caused this, and Ty Lee knew that to be true.

_Somewhat_.

It was surprise and revulsion that met her when Mai kissed Fire Lord Ozai on the lips. That much could not have changed in seven years. His hands rested on her hips and Ty Lee could tell that she was just waiting for it to be over.

Mai opened her mouth to give him the news about the baby, but he had already looked past her and was staring at Ty Lee. It made Ty Lee squirm slightly under his harsh scrutiny.

"What's she doing here?" Ozai inquired cautiously, looking at the girl who shamed her family by joining the _circus_. The girl whom Azula had a crush on; of course Ozai and Ursa noticed, particularly when she wailed about it being unrequited, and he could only remind her that she was a _child_.

"She was with the rebels," Azula said and Ty Lee could feel uncomfortable tension in the room. "I'm... keeping her."

Ozai cleared his throat, analyzing his daughter. Of course she would get what she wanted.

"She needs to be interrogated and properly put on trial for her treason," Ozai finally said and Ty Lee was surprised; she imagined Azula would easily get her way.

"She's of more interest to me than the nation, believe me. I have a hard time believing she was any kind of _mastermind_," Azula said slowly, her voice laced with a... _threat_. "I want to teach her something about loyalty... personally."

Ozai looked her up and down, and then his lip twitched with something between disgust and realization. "As you wish," he said, deciding to distance himself from the conversation. "But don't let her outside, and I expected her to be guarded at all times. It's your head as well as hers, you know?"

"I'll have it arranged at once," Azula said and Ty Lee was unsure what to make of it. The princess always spoke like an adult, always regally, but now she seemed so frigid and cold. Her eyes gleamed no longer; they seemed either hardened or glazed over, staring into nothingness when she was not boring eyes that looked a thousand years old instead of twenty-one.

Ty Lee was yanked away, still chained in such a way that she could not even hit a single pressure point. Azula knew her too well and Ty Lee wished she had been caught by anyone but her. The memories were happy, but agony bled into them as well.

Her relationship with Azula had always been confusing, and now more so.

She just followed and kept her mouth shut; it seemed like the best course of action.

* * *

"I have something to tell you," Mai said slowly as Azula and Ty Lee were gone.

"Quickly; I have a variety of audiences about the raid and the high profile captives," he replied, it sounding like such an inconvenience. Mai's jaw twitched and she did not care if he noticed. Neither of them believed they loved each other and neither of them cared to.

It was unpleasant. It was something that made Mai cut off all contact with her parents as soon as she was able, even though it was offered to her to break tradition, given their political status. To that, Mai gave a resounding no.

"It can't really be done quickly," Mai said, finding this too difficult. "At dinner, I guess."

And she vacated the room before she had to say anything else. At first she contemplated finding Azula, but then that would most certainly make her yet again involved with what was likely going to escalate into some kind of unspeakable torture or sex; it could really go either way with Azula.

She wound up messing around with archery. It was a habit she picked up when she got extremely bored with her life, and therefore, she decided to expand her set of skills. Mai had always admired the Yuyan Archers, and for her birthday she got an authentic bow of theirs.

Those perks of being royalty were not bad. The cost, however, was higher than Mai was often comfortable with. It was not something she expected at all, not for a moment. Zuko was a traitor and Mai just figured she was free from a contract that she had nothing to do with after that.

_But no_, her parents were the slipperiest, most conniving assholes of all time. They somehow managed to get her into an even worse situation. She remained passive, and it, to her, was a kind of defiance. But the kind of defiance that goes unnoticed, which was, in Mai's eyes, the best kind.

She pulled back the arrow on the slender string, analyzing her target. She had perfect aim, and she needed to take her mind off of everything. Off of the fact that she felt _relieved _when Zuko was not there... and the implications of that were not good at all. Off of the fact that Ty Lee was now involved in something scary with Azula.

And she was pregnant.

Which was, altogether, one of the messiest situations Mai had ever been in.

She hit the target and felt no satisfaction.

* * *

Dinner came agonizingly slowly. Azula had removed herself from Ty Lee after assigning the guards and locking her in a nice guest room, for reasons unknown to the princess. And Azula sat at the end of the table, where Mai should have been sitting, but she never did. Mai was always in the middle, halfway between Azula and Ozai, and Azula across from her father.

Those seating arrangements spoke louder than anything about their familial relationship of the past four years.

"Zuko's girlfriend is at the Boiling Rock," Ozai said, his eyes fixated on Azula although it was clear he was talking to Mai. "That's... more than I could have hoped for."

Azula chewed on her lower lip and left her food untouched. "But she's less likely to talk if she's in love with him," she said softly, somewhat frightened to contradict her father.

"I'm pregnant," blurted out Mai out of nowhere and Ozai turned to face her, torn out of his odd staring contest with his daughter. "That's what I was going to tell you."

"That's... good," and with that Ozai was asking if it was his, as both girls could tell from the slight, suspicious glint in his eye.

"It's yours. Don't worry," Mai said quietly and Ozai glanced at Azula.

"Given your preferred company, I'm sure that it is," Ozai remarked and Azula took a bite of food she had no desire to eat rather than discuss her sexual relationship with her stepmother.

The meal was completely silent after that.

* * *

Ty Lee was surprised by how nice her accommodations were. But she was also aware that it would come at a great price, and she felt nauseated at that thought of that. The three of them ─ Azula, Ozai, Mai ─ all looked at her with a glint and scrutiny in their eyes that the acrobat could not explain. She just knew it gave her chills.

She looked out of the window, which, with a quick tug she discovered was sealed shut, welded at the sides. Caldera was beautiful, truly beautiful. She remembered it fondly, although it mostly arose in her nightmares. Ty Lee did not join the rebellion because she hated the Fire Nation; she joined because she had no choice.

Mercy was hard to come by, particularly since her ties to the royal family were severed and her parents did not bother to claim her after the comet. She wound up lost, very lost, and the arms of those who helped her were very rarely kind. Ty Lee had the advantage of looking ethnically ambiguous; she had mixed blood, and therefore the Earth Kingdom was easier to be in.

The Fire Nation had everything. They conquered all left standing except for the Northern Water Tribe, and it was a time of peace here in the homeland, but the war was still quietly raging in what once was the Earth Kingdom.

They did not give up without a fight.

She spent her first day in captivity pacing back and forth, trying to sleep and her only contact with others when masked soldiers gave her food and water. It was the best quality food she had eaten in nearly a decade, and she still did not know why she was being treated so kindly.

Yes, Azula and Mai were her closest friends since that day Azula found her crying in the bathroom. They had been inseparable for years, until they wound up separated. She and Azula had... some kind of petty relationship. The kind of relationship you have when you're twelve and holding hands and a kiss on the cheek was a big deal. And dates were supervised by your parents (or, in Azula's case, a variety of extremely intimidating armed guards).

But none of that meant she would be pardoned for treason. The Fire Lord cast out his own son for speaking out in a war meeting; Ty Lee doubted that her adolescent relationship with his daughter and close friendship with his wife were enough to let her avoid punishment.

On her third day of imprisonment, the door opened and someone walked in for the first time. She thought it would be Azula and she touched the inside of her thighs, where the nail marks still shined red, now scabbed over.

It was Mai. She shut the door behind her and walked inside, swallowing visibly but her face not giving away what she was thinking or feeling. Ty Lee could have expected as much.

"Has Azula been here yet?" was the first thing Mai asked and Ty Lee slowly shook her head.

"What do you want to talk about?" Ty Lee asked softly, trying to be as amicable as usual despite her unfortunate situation.

Mai picked at her lips for a moment. "Just to you. I want to catch up without the, uh, catches that come with talking to Azula."

Ty Lee pursed her lips, afraid to agree and therefore indirectly be saying something insulting about the princess. Old habits die hard, she supposed. And she was _not _a traitor in her mind. She was _not_.

"What does she mean, teaching me about loyalty?" Ty Lee whispered, her tone clearly frightened. Mai then felt quite awkward; consoling people was not her best area of social interaction.

"I actually have no idea. But it will probably be scary." Mai sat down on Ty Lee's bed. "She's gotten really... I don't know. Forget it."

Mai shrugged and Ty Lee suppressed a groan of frustration. She almost forgot how aggravating her best friends were.

"She's gotten really what? Is she okay?" Ty Lee whispered, sitting down on the floor. She always did; she always liked to be below eye level of people even when she was their superior.

It was a survival instinct, Azula explained to Mai once. Just like Ty Lee always wore a mask to conceal what she was really thinking. The mask of letting people believe she was not thinking at all.

"Just, she's gotten worse. These years haven't been very easy on her," Mai said softly before swallowing and clearing her throat. "How did you wind up with the rebels?"

"Why were you kissing Fire Lord Ozai?"

They stared each other down, neither wanting to answer first. Surprisingly, the more submissive of the two did not give in.

Mai replied, "Because we've been married for four years. Now answer my question."

Ty Lee's eyebrows shot up before she tried to hide her strong reaction of revulsion.

"It's complicated and I don't... I don't want to talk about it. But I'm not a traitor," Ty Lee hissed and Mai just shook her head.

"You are, and you know that you are," Mai said quietly. "But I can help you if you start from the beginning."

"Not today," Ty Lee said quietly and Mai's amber eyes bored into her. "Come back tomorrow."

"If you're alive tomorrow," Mai said softly and Ty Lee breathed in and then out.

"Tomorrow we find out what's happening to the people I was caught with. Information is all I've got to keep me alive. I don't ─ I love Azula but I don't trust her as far as I can throw her," Ty Lee said and Mai supposed that her information _was _power.

"Alright."

And then they were silent.

* * *

Ty Lee opened her eyes in the dead of the night when her door opened. She had shared a bedroom with a variety of other people during her time with the rebels. There never was enough space and they were always hiding, always hunted.

This bed was wide and plush and comfortable. Even in her spacious home, there was rarely actual space given her family's size. It was somewhat disturbing how her most luxurious lodgings were her prison cell after being imprisoned for treason.

It was Azula. Ty Lee could tell just from her breathing and footsteps. They were all so deliberate, all so precise.

"Are you excited to find out what happens to your friends tomorrow?" Azula said softly, kneeling on the bed beside Ty Lee. "I am."

Ty Lee squeezed her eyes shut but there was no pretending she could not hear.

"I don't understand..." Ty Lee whispered and Azula lay beside her, her hands clasped on her flat stomach. She seemed so _casual_.

_Ty Lee seized Azula by the hand and the princess did not know if she was supposed to let go. They are twelve and their childhood crush, that their mothers fawned over and they took no trouble to hide, had become something that was more endangering to their futures._

_ But Azula did like how the acrobat showed no fear, and so, as the autumn leaves fell, withered and in brilliant golden and red hues that matched the tones of the Fire Nation, they walked together, abandoning Azula's guard (whom quickly caught on, muttered words of discontent to each other, and followed a few steps behind)._

_ "Okay," Ty Lee said as she viciously crushed a leaf beneath her foot. "The Earth Kingdom's trees turn these colors too!"_

_ Azula cocked an eyebrow. "You mean they don't turn green and tope? I had no idea. And the Water Tribe's seaweed is bright blue, of course..."_

_ Ty Lee giggled even though Azula was clearly insulting her intelligence._

_ "I just found that out yesterday," Ty Lee whispered, as if it were some great secret._

_ Azula wrestled with her words before she allowed them to escape. "I like it when you're stupid."_

_ They became very close to a kiss when they wound up aware of the heavy footsteps behind them._

_ Spies, not just bodyguards, spies. And so Azula and Ty Lee broke apart and, still holding hands, went to go find one of those vendors that sold the cinnamon and apple cider._

"Do you want to be charged with treason?" Azula whispered in Ty Lee's ear, interrupting her memory.

"No," Ty Lee said, trying not to be scathing.

"Make me an offer," Azula whispered, her hot breath against Ty Lee's neck making her shoulders shoot up.

Ty Lee just turned away and Azula grabbed her arm, pulling her towards her.

Azula kissed Ty Lee on the lips and it was nothing like the gentle grazing she once knew. Or even the longer one before Ty Lee left for the circus. It felt like it would bruise, that it burst her lips. And Azula was sucking on her lower lip, making her gut clench as she was utterly confused.

And Azula pinned Ty Lee's arms at her sides before she could react, and then she was straddling her, their lips finally breaking apart and Ty Lee taking a deep breath now that she was freed from the locked kiss.

Her nails were cold and sharp along Ty Lee's body, running across her skin. _It felt good_, Ty Lee had to admit, but the circumstances surrounding it made it less pleasant. And the look in Azula's eyes made it all the more confusing.

And then there was a slight glow of blue, as Azula ran a very precise fingertip along Ty Lee's clothes, liberating her from them with a slight smirk that was an eerie green against the cerulean light.

Her hands slid to Ty Lee's perfect, round breasts and Ty Lee moaned.

And so, she made her an offer.


	3. Orange Dawn, Red Dress

_**AN: **__Two time skips in this chapter. I'm really sorry. If I were to write out everything that happened in those gaps, it would be a pretty boring read and also at parts, probably MA rated, which is not allowed here. So, my inspiration for this fic was the idea of, instead of Azula being broken and being fixed by Ty Lee, Ty Lee is broken and being fixed by Azula. But, of course, the power dynamic is also different, and I kind of wanted to explore it from the slavery point of view._

* * *

**Chapter Three: **Orange Dawn, Red Dress

* * *

It was a magnificent sunrise, but no one was truly bothering to look at it.

Ty Lee woke on the day of truth for her allies... or at least, those who had taken her in.

She met the rebels in a way that a good Fire Nation girl never imagined that she would have to. In total and utter desperation, and in the absolute worst of situations. It was fortunate that she was charming, pretty and had no genuine connection to the Fire Nation save for her clothes, and wearing red was not uncommon for those trying to evade the clutches of the Fire Nation.

The comet had streaked across the sky and she thought it was beautiful, utterly intoxicating. Until, after it was over, she realized that she was on the wrong side of the fence, and her family had abandoned her when she ran away from home and joined the circus.

It was her authentic Fire Nation papers that the rebels were most interested in, and when she showed them her very particular set of combat skills and her complete expertise bundled in the form of a human who looked a lot like a very cute koala-sheep made her a valuable commodity.

One would think that Azula would be impressed by that. If she were in the same situation, Ty Lee had no doubts that she would do the same to save herself, and probably pride herself on it later. But Azula... struggled with abandonment, with betrayal, with those emotions she taught herself to carefully suppress. The need for validation yet the arrogance to think it was a granted.

And Ty Lee loved her, because she was her friend, and her first love, and her first kiss behind the huge willow tree that grew on the dew bejeweled lawn behind the Ladies' Academy. She just was so unaware of what a monster Princess Azula could truly be.

She contemplating getting out of bed as she tried to register all of the feelings in her body. It was then that she recalled the lingering feeling of Azula was not from a dream or from the journey on the ship. Azula was here last night, and Ty Lee was unsure what happened.

The acrobat turned rebel was sure, somewhat, that she did not like what happened.

* * *

Under that same light pink sunrise, Mai woke in the same, sickening life she was stuck in. And she found herself to be queasy and nearing violently ill as well, to top it all off. With soft footsteps that made her feel vaguely like a ghost, she walked to the bathroom, gilded, beautiful, glass, porcelain, black granite...

The Royal Palace of the Fire Nation was such a pretty cage. Invisible bars masked by beautiful tapestries and servants offering her anything she could imagine, anything she could ask for. Start a war, fund a revolution, drink expensive tea and never have to walk in public again. But all things came with a price, and all things likely would.

She was suddenly hit with dry heaves that purged tears from her eyes as her stomach twitched and betrayed her. Pregnancy was already something she hated, and while Mai hated pretty much everything, she really hated some kind of parasite within her forcing her to chuck up her guts.

Her wedding night might as well have been the last day of her life. Mai loved Zuko similarly to Azula and Ty Lee. They were two dumb adolescent couples, except Mai knew she would marry Zuko and so she eased into the role, and wound up liking it. Zuko was not as much of a jerk as most Fire Nation noble boys.

But when Zuko was disgraced, her parents handed her off to Ozai. Mai was a warrior, a brilliant mind, someone powerful who accomplished great things to win the war before and during the comet. And then her parents acted as if she were some kind of trophy.

She can still remember her wedding, and Azula murmuring for her to drink up on the wine before her wedding night. Mai never came so close to punching Azula in the face, and that is a fairly loud statement, given Azula's barbed tongue.

Mai looked beautiful that night, and she knew she did. She was adorned in red lace and make-up she would never choose to wear as a sullen and rebellious teenager. He looked at her and it felt so sick and wrong to have his eyes undressing her. Mai was beautiful that night, in many ways. But she did not feel beautiful when it was over.

And now she had his baby in her and that made things even worse. It was not that she disliked the thing growing inside of her. She was sure she would wind up caring about it once it was out of her or these symptoms went away. Even her controlling, despicable mother loved Mai, as much as the Fire Lady did not want to admit it.

Mai did not know what to make of the life that was handed to her, the life she wanted to be rid of so much. She should have fought, perhaps, but there was not much of a choice. There was never a choice, Mai supposed. It was a fate decided for her the moment she was born.

She resigned herself to the convulsions of her abdomen and was already missing her travels of conquest in the Earth Kingdom.

* * *

Azula was outside in the courtyard training before Ty Lee and Mai woke. She had cerulean on her fingertips and was enjoying the rush of the sun burning through her veins in the most pleasurable way imaginable. And last night... Ty Lee's offer... she still could feel the afterglow from it... the lingering satisfaction.

Her lust for her prisoner was somewhat unsettling, and she tried to think it through as she practiced with lightning. It always helped her with thinking better than punching flames, and firebending forms numbed her mind. It was a duality that served her well.

The dawn was vermillion and Azula breathed slowly in and out.

She thought about loyalty... well, for _betrayal _she would have had to have cared about and trusted Ty Lee. And of course Azula did not. Right? Right?

_Of course not_.

She burnt a tree to a crisp and watched it burn. It was a borderline sexual sensation, the same she felt when she ransacked and punished those who dared to stand against the Fire Nation's empire. Fire within her, within her hips and her throat.

And then she recalled yet again last night, and how gradually pain blended with pleasure and Azula no longer knew the difference. Sex with a prisoner was altogether unethical, and Azula respected the codes of the Fire Nation and _honor_.

Honor mattered to her. Much more than her adolescent hormones and damaged _feelings _were to her. Honor, loyalty... things that Ty Lee so severely lacked.

Azula quenched the flame engulfing the tree and beginning to lick the flowers.

* * *

Princess Azula and her disgraced former first love whispered once Azula had Ty Lee in her clutches again. It was intimate yet somewhat violent and Ty Lee found herself intoxicated by the situation.

"I know last night was probably confusing," Azula breathed into Ty Lee's ear as she ceased her training and sat down with her prisoner. The prisoner whom she had to keep in line if she were to keep her alive.

Ty Lee was her first love. And Azula though that perhaps your first love is something you never truly forget. The first love that you were so afraid to talk to, and you would gaze at her and try to think about what adjective just perfectly described her hair and how it captivated you. Or how you analyzed her eyes and occasionally stared for too long. They both had felt that way about each other for so long, it felt like it would exist in perpetuity.

And _then _Ty Lee decided to run away from home and join the _circus_. No regard for Azula or the fact that Mai had already been sent away to the Earth Kingdom and Azula thought she would likely never see her again.

"I'm not a rebel, Azula," Ty Lee whispered for the thousandth time, and she could tell that Azula did not believe her.

Then again, trust was very thin between them and Ty Lee understood why. So much changed in so little time. Azula was not Azula anymore, and Ty Lee was not Ty Lee. At least... not the Azula and Ty Lee they were when they were kids. Life did not stop for them, and Ty Lee did not know why she ever dared to imagine that it would.

"Do you still love the Fire Nation," Azula asked and Ty Lee knew what it truly meant. _'Do you still love me?'_

"I never stopped. I did what I _had _to," Ty Lee said, her tone no longer hushed. Azula studied her for a moment longer, and Ty Lee could see the disbelief and ice in her piercing golden eyes. "And I'll do what I have to for y-the Fire Nation to trust me again. I promise."

Azula swallowed. "Promises don't mean very much in this world."

"Mine do," Ty Lee insisted, and yet, Azula still did not believe a word coming out of her soft, coral pink lips. Ty Lee stared at the floor and felt her heart heavy and sinking with the pain and futility of her situation.

There was nothing for her anymore, and no way for her to save herself or the life she once knew.

"Get yourself ready for the show," Azula said softly, contemplating kissing her prisoner for a moment before disappearing into the palace.

Ty Lee heard the door lock and she kicked the foot of her bed.

_Futile. So very futile._

* * *

Squalid. That was the definite word Ty Lee would have used to describe the streets of Caldera. Squalid. She was led from the palace and wound up in the Royal Plaza, a place she once looked at as if it did not matter at all. It was just a backdrop as Ty Lee remained in the beautiful bubble she happily lived within for her adolescence.

But now it looked like the symbol of what Ty Lee lost, what Ty Lee was not sure if she loved anymore, or if she ever truly understood. Behind her eyes she saw blood, gore, pain, and the suffering that the nation she swore fealty to inflicted upon those she grew to call her friends.

They were led to the Royal Plaza, and Ty Lee quickly realized it was an execution. Sweat washed over her body, forced out of her skin and coating her. Azula watched her, golden eyes occasionally flickering over to her trembling pet.

It terrified her to the core to watch, and she wondered if they all sold each other out or if they stuck by each other in the end. It was painful in so many ways.

Ty Lee watched the noose draped around someone's neck. Someone she did not recognize; someone she would probably recognize if their face were not covered. It made her feel utterly revolted as she realized she was being forced to watch this for a reason. As she saw that Azula was watching her and not the execution itself.

That knowledge of the golden eyes brushing over her body, watching her for the twitch of fear or the moment of weakness, made Ty Lee tense significantly.

Ty Lee closed her eyes, but that did not stop her from vomiting when she heard the snap of bones.

* * *

Ty Lee fell into a deep slumber once she was back in the palace that was now her prison. She could not bear to keep seeing their faces... their faces... people she knew and befriended. Her Fire Nation friends were better, were more powerful. But she loved those people too.

When Ty Lee was next conscious, her head was on someone's lap, her hair wrapped in their fingers. It terrified her for a moment as she jolted awake and prepared to immobilize them, but she saw that it was Azula.

"Shhh," the princess murmured and Ty Lee squinted at her before lying back and remaining silent. "You said some quite interesting things in your sleep..."

Ty Lee's flicker of fear was enough to confirm it. In truth, Ty Lee did not say a word, while being tortured or while being given back to her rightful owner. But she prodded, and Ty Lee's expression gave it all away.

Whatever she knew was important... and Azula would have it before the end.

She stroked Ty Lee's face so gently, and it was confusion for the acrobat yet again.

"Why don't you explain it all to me, love?" Azula said sweetly and Ty Lee wondered if this was a very hazy dream.

"No," Ty Lee said and Azula's reaction to the word was about as livid and shocked as Ty Lee imagined it would be. "No. I won't. Because I'm not just going to lie down and take this from you. I can't... I _won't_, you understand?"

Azula pursed her lips.

There were other ways of solving this problem for her.

* * *

_**Three Weeks Later...**_

Azula's attempts lasted for weeks, and Ozai was becoming sickened, more sickened by the moment. Because she walked with a different gait, because her neck was sucked red and he pretended not to see even though he wanted to throttle the circus freak for doing that to his perfect, pure daughter.

And now, he had her in the throne room, in his clutches. Ozai looked at his daughter and then at paperwork that had been brought to his attention. "You invoked an archaic law to enslave your ex-girlfriend?"

Azula paused, contemplated it for a moment and said, "I did, father. I've learned our nations laws for a reason."

"What is it you gain from her?" Ozai asked, studying Azula closely. "She's useless in every definition of the term. I'm surprised she knows how to spell her own name, much less that she's somehow vital enough to the rebels to keep her alive."

Azula thought carefully about what to say yet again. "She is alive because I want her. That's fair enough, isn't it? There are laws that encourage the right of those who participate in conquest to take any slave they desire."

"Does she tell you she loves you?" Ozai asked and Azula did not comprehend the mockery in his tone. "Or is it the other way around."

"I'm attracted to her. I think that many people would do the same in my situation. Their ex-girlfriend right there for them to snatch up and keep. It's a bit of revenge, a bit of desire, a bit of, reminiscence. But it's not love, father. I promise you."

"Listen to me, and listen to me well," Ozai growled and Azula suddenly had the sensation that this was not going to end in a way Azula wanted. "I don't approve. I don't approve of you bedding her and being so... enraptured by a prisoner of war. You're protecting her."

"I would do no such thing," Azula snarled and Ozai's eyes flashed at her insolence.

"If you would do no such thing, turn her over to the Boiling Rock for proper interrogation. I think your methods are... more questionable than I would expect from you. Unless, perhaps, you'd also like to join her there. Maybe I can get you two a nice double cell."

Azula was silent. "Send her to the Boiling Rock.

It was just sex. That was it. Just sex. Just sex.

* * *

Soon after Ozai's demand, Ty Lee was in handcuffs and in a dim room with a dripping ceiling and flickering candle. The people muttering something about interrogations did not scare her.

Ty Lee wore her calm expression like war paint.

She may have been sweet and cute, but she was powerful in ways that none of them would ever fully understand. Ty Lee felt her heart start to race as the man turned to her, his face not even covered as she imagined it would be.

Such sweet brutality she felt, and when it was over, she was deemed useless. She drifted in and out of consciousness after they administered painkiller for some inexplicable reason. They spoke in hushed tones about how they were having no luck and _'look at her, you think she knows anything?'._

But it did not end. No one came for her, and Ty Lee did not imagine that anyone _would _come for her.

* * *

Azula tried to forget the night she spent with a woman she had forgotten for long enough. Ty Lee did not matter, although Azula felt a bond, a bond she wanted to act on. But currently she was beyond occupied. Father sent her away soon after Azula had Ty Lee thrown in prison to teach her a lesson.

On another hunt for Zuko, this time alone as Mai remained trapped and pregnant with Azula's sibling. A sibling Azula did not desire for a split second.

Ty Lee, all the while, was fading in and out of consciousness while chained in an uncomfortable position. Watched over, guarded. In the Boiling Rock, in utter solitude for little reason.

She hung by her wrists which were chafed raw, her lips slightly ajar and dotted with blood.

It was solitude, but they forgot each other. Perhaps they forgot each other, at least.

And Ty Lee did not think she would ever forgive Azula for this.

* * *

_**Five Months Later...**_

Azula claimed her reward when Zuko was in her father's hands and she knew the crown would be on her head.

"You can have her," Ozai said and Azula at first did not comprehend. She thought for a minute he meant Mai, his wife, and then she realized Ty Lee. And then she realized the woman who haunted her dreams forevermore. "Go collect her."

"Thank you, father," Azula said, stepping towards him. She stopped short of an embrace before realizing that was probably inappropriate.

Ty Lee came too slightly and was suddenly aware of the chains on her. And aware of where she was yet again.

"A-Azula...?" Ty Lee rasped, unsure if she recognized her.

"I brought you this," Azula said, gesturing to the beautiful robes draped over her elbow. They were gorgeous and red. Deep, fiercely red that looked like a combination between blood, the sunset and a raging fire. Ty Lee wore pink before she wore dirt brown and forest green.

"It's beautiful," Ty Lee said quietly, although her pain was too much to ignore. Although pretty silk did not seem to matter anymore when all she felt was hollowness and desire to die. "But I'm sure it comes with a lot of strings attached."

"Don't look a gift mongoose-dragon in the mouth," Azula replied sharply and Ty Lee pursed her lips tightly. Ty Lee did know far better than to argue with the royals, to fight against a nation with limitless power. A nation she did _not _betray.

"I like it, but, uh, why did you get it for me?" Ty Lee asked, batting her eyelashes as if that would sway Azula in either direction.

"Because we're going to have a lovely, candlelit dinner together," Azula purred and Ty Lee was yet again baffled by how quickly her tone could shift from desiring and tender to cold and cruel.

_Cold and statuesque_, Azula was. Like a deity that Ty Lee could brush her hands against, but, all the same, part of Azula was mortal and Ty Lee could see it. But Ty Lee did not know if Azula had a shred of humanity left in her.

Azula had Ty Lee unchained, and brought her into her arms, helping her to her feet. The atrophy in her legs was clear, and Azula knew she would have to do something to fix that.

But for now, she helped her into the beautiful clothes and prepared for the meal they would share before Azula had her reward at last.

Ty Lee did not care either way.


	4. Dinner With Dragons

**Chapter Four: **Dinner With Dragons

* * *

Ty Lee was distant and confused as Azula had her escorted to the beautiful dining room. It was still in the Boiling Rock, somehow, but it must have been decorated and cleaned specifically for the occasion. The acrobat felt queasy, dry, and confused, half-certain that Azula was a particularly vivid hallucination.

"Sit down," Azula purred, cautiously licking her lips. Ty Lee looked horrible, horribly mistreated and Azula did not know where to place the blame. She did wonder if Ty Lee even had anything to do with the rebels; it was not as if she was the brightest flame in the candle shop.

The acrobat seemed disjointed from her surroundings, and Azula slowly helped her to find a seat. Azula eased her gently and Ty Lee rested for a moment, examining her chafed wrists and realizing that she had been liberated.

_Or was she just hallucinating? Did she already snap under torture?_

"I apologize for your treatment at the hands of the guards," Azula purrs as she gently stepped away from Ty Lee and strode over to the opposite side of the table. "Drink your water."

The order was cold and regal, but Ty Lee thought perhaps it had some compassion behind it. Yet, she was not entirely certain. Ty Lee reached forward for the glass of water, and her fingers first made contact with rice wine before finding the clear liquid.

She touched it to her lips and it was the best taste she had ever experienced. It was at that moment that she audibly moaned, and nearly dropped her glass from the momentary embarrassment. Azula looked relatively transfixed by it.

"Are you... _aroused _by your water?" Azula inquired, trying not to laugh.

Ty Lee struggled to find the words, and just drank down the last of it. Azula watched with a detached expression as their food was served. Ty Lee was again wondering if this was real or not, and the fact of the matter was that she was unsure.

"No. I'm just thirsty," she breathed and Azula examined her for a moment.

"Bring her more," Azula ordered in a tone that was vaguely serpentine. And then Ty Lee squeezed her eyes shut at the sudden and abrupt memory of the vivid hallucinations. Spider-snakes... many of them... on her skin.

_None of them real._

"My father has allowed me to bring you back to the Fire Nation," Azula said calmly, gently sipping from her glass. Ty Lee squinted at her and Azula could tell she was millions of miles away mentally.

"Good," Ty Lee offered, before coughing. Azula inhaled sharply and the serving boy nearly tripped over his own feet bringing Ty Lee her water. "I mean, thank you, I mean, I don't... I don't know..."

Azula picked at her lips and watched her slave again drink from the small chalice. It was captivating, Azula supposed, to be giving a dying woman water. And she imagined that, with that level of power, she could make her dance.

Princess Azula wanted to make her dance.

* * *

Zuko and Mai were outside in the palace courtyard before dinner would be served. Mai did not know why he had come up to her, why he thought they were not being watched. It was not that she disliked Zuko. She thought she probably still had feelings for him, somewhere deep inside of her.

But she also had a newborn baby that was not his, and a distinct desire to maintain the trust of the man she married. Mai was... selfish. And Zuko was someone she was interested in when she was an adolescent, and she would feel as ridiculous as Azula had been about Ty Lee showing up again if she tried to kindle something from nothing.

Mai and Zuko's relationship consisted of a few, weak, dying embers. That was not enough for Mai to risk the life she had built.

She was sitting on a decaying swing, digging her toes into the dirt beneath it. Zuko offered to push her and she shook her head, and so he was leaning on the tree and just watching her.

"Where's Azula?" Zuko asked slowly, glancing around. Mai realized he was talking to her and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"The Boiling Rock. She went to get Ty Lee... that was her reward or something, for bringing you home," Mai said with a shrug.

"Her reward..." Zuko murmured, his lip twisting with derision and anger. The idea that father sent Azula to collect him and have him tried for crimes against his _own nation_...

The fact that he was guilty of those crimes for some reason angered him less than the fact that Ozai _pushed him _into the arms of the rebels. Zuko was looking at opportunity, and as much as he wanted to regain his honor, he wanted to gain some semblance of a _life_.

"You're not going to be killed," Mai said dryly, but Zuko shook his head and sighed.

"That's what I'm worried about," he remarked. "Dying would be quick and easy. But my father isn't going to do that. He's going to keep me alive..."

"Welcome to my nightmare, Prince Zuko. I hope you enjoy your stay," Mai muttered and Zuko swallowed, his mouth dry.

"What does that even mean?" Zuko demanded and Mai grit her teeth.

"Figure it out," she said coolly before stepping off of the old swing and walking towards the palace.

_Figure it out_. Ugh. Zuko hated this. He hated how he was stolen, how he was taken from the work he was dedicated to. And now he was put in display like some kind of pet for his father, inside of a gilded cage, just waiting to find out if he lived or died.

And Mai was not making things much easier. He had to admit he still had feelings for her, and he was shocked when she did not seem to reciprocate them anymore. Some of her glances looked romantic, others not so much, and Zuko had no clue what to think.

He just knew that he now had a little half-brother.

And it was hers.

* * *

Ty Lee looked at the first course served and was not sure if she was queasy or excited. Perhaps both. She could not truly remember what she had eaten that had not been stale or barely edible. Azula looked mildly dissatisfied by her own food, but her eyes were mostly glued to her guest.

"I'm eager for you to join my family," Azula said sweetly, trying to sound like the princess she was and not the person uncertain to see her guest. Her attempts to enslave and dominate and rekindle things with Ty Lee had landed the acrobat here for a long time.

And it showed. _How _it showed. Her body was disappearing, fading into itself. The moon white scars were more evident in the delicate candlelight of the Warden's Apartment. And she kept slipping away, her mind drifting elsewhere. Azula struggled to eat, and she wondered what the strange feeling inside of her stomach and chest was.

It was a sensation she had never experienced before, and she could not identify it if she had a flame to her temple. She did not rush the dinner, despite her desire to get onto the steel ships waiting for her in the harbor and back to the palace.

Ty Lee was grateful for the food, although she felt queasy afterwards, and she allowed Azula to take her. The free space as she stepped out into the light was quickly gone as she was ushered from gondola to dock to ship, but she did breathe in as much of the crisp morning air as she could without vomiting. Her eyes, however, remained squeezed shut from the sudden shock of the vibrant sun.

She fell asleep on the ship, soothed by the gentle rocking. Her slumber was dreamless, as it usually was unless she was under the influence of some kind of hallucinogenic drugs. She was not quite sure why it happened to her, nor why it went on for so long. Probably for some reason.

_Definitely _for some reason.

She woke with her head resting on Azula's stomach, and she jolted awake with a sudden surge of panic.

While she and Azula's desires had conflicted, contorted and burned fiercely during their few months of isolation together as Azula kept Ty Lee as her slave, now, Ty Lee could not bear the idea of it. Of Azula's forcefulness, her coldness, her callousness that Ty Lee did not think she could confuse with compassion ever again.

The bruises, scars and marks on her body were enough to reveal Azula's true colors. Colors that were not as beautiful and appealing as Ty Lee imagined they would be. To Ty Lee, Azula always had the most beautiful aura, even if no one else saw it.

But now? After Azula so gladly enslaved her, after she forgot about her for an eternity in the Boiling Rock to be tortured to no end.

Her aura was the color of dried blood on a split lip.

* * *

"Ryzu, do what I say," Mai murmured, and the child almost seemed to listen to her, although Mai supposed it was about as useful as talking to a cat. Zuko was sitting at the table, staring in a way that made Mai occasionally glance at Ozai. She was certain he did not notice, but thankfully he was not commenting.

He was still small, still barely even human. And Mai realizes she did most certainly care about him, and she had few qualms about hiding it, _save _from Zuko and Azula, of all people. Or perhaps, of the most likely people.

"Are you looking into anything for your trial or are you too busy leering at my wife?" Ozai inquired and the bubble Mai and Zuko were thankful for immediately popped.

Zuko could only stare at his father, and Mai bit her lip. Zuko was not quite stupid enough to get into an altercation with the Fire Lord, but the resentment in him was so evident it hurt. And resentment would lead to very dangerous, treasonous ideas.

Mai had no clue why she cared. It made her question her scathing attitude towards Azula and Ty Lee... and she hated herself for it. She directed her attention at the squirming infant as Zuko kept searching for the words to say, and Ozai looked smug.

And then the door opened. "Someone bring food to our guest's room. I've just had her locked in," Azula ordered to the servants, and then to those seated around the table, "Good evening, family."

Azula took a seat, greedily turned the attention to her, and the situation was averted.

* * *

That night, Mai and Azula rose to go to bed together, and Mai hesitated between doors before walking into that of her stepdaughter. Azula glanced at Mai, searching her up and down, thinking about how she used to share a bed with Ty Lee.

How she and her slave might as well have been sharing a prison cell. The passion. But now, Ty Lee was beyond broken, and Azula was letting her sleep under the influence of syrup for it, and knew very well that her pet had no current desire for sex.

_Why _Azula respected that at the time, she was not sure. And therefore, she made a thousand calculated excuses in her mind.

"So, you're not going to bed with Ty Lee like before?" Mai inquired, and Azula did not know if she was genuinely curious or mocking. She did often wish that Mai would at least show a shred of emotion.

"She doesn't want to," Azula purred as she shut the door to her room. Mai glanced at it, and then at Azula.

"Well, it's rather unlike you to respect the boundaries of others."

"I'm not a fool. It would be absurd of me to allow her to think that I was as cruel as her captors. I think that the brutality she suffered may work in my favor in bending her to my will," Azula said clinically and Mai squinted for a moment before she shrugged it off.

It was horrible. But Azula, in general, was horrible. And Mai thought that perhaps, Azula might have a little bit of humanity in her, enough to see someone she cared about suffering and to want to help her. Ty Lee always was the weakness. Maybe that was why Azula was so desperate to bend her and break her.

The night happened quickly. Adulterous things swiftly kicking into action, neither of them wanting to say a word or acknowledge their complex family situation. Of how Zuko and Ty Lee being in the palace was going to upset the precious little balance.

Azula was on Mai's lap, both of them ivory and naked, skin glistening with sweat and the sheen of moonlight through the window. And Mai's tongue touched her breast, rubbing against her nipple. Azula sliding onto her knees, Mai's back arched upon the tease. Mai pushing Azula down and the princess quite liking it, despite her strong preference for domination.

Grinding, urgent fingers, desperation for release.

_But_ _they both missed other people for the first time in a long time._

* * *

A/N: I apologize for the length of this chapter. I usually won't let myself release anything under 3,000 words, but I'm so so so busy with end of the year projects and finals, and I wanted to keep the plot progressing at a decent pace, regardless. So the next two chapters or so might be less than the usual, but I'll try to make up for it with longer chapters later on.


	5. Cirque du Folie

**Chapter Five: **Cirque du Folie

* * *

Azula woke and Mai was gone, but what else would she have expected? It was unlikely that they would be caught together, but, for some reason, everything had become more uncomfortable with the addition of Mai having a child and Azula exerting so much energy to try to claim Ty Lee as her own.

The enslavement was an action Azula was fighting to justify and keep legal to everyone, but she was not sure if she could justify it to _herself_. Her father told her that she had to stand before a council tomorrow to explain why she should be allowed to be in possession of an invaluable asset of war.

As if their torture of Ty Lee had turned up anything. Azula was certain Ozai was just going on and on about how Ty Lee was the center of the rebellion to keep her away from his daughter. That angered Azula, but she knew that the throne was so much more important than her feelings for Ty Lee.

She wondered briefly as she walked through the sunbeams, decorated with dust flecks floating in midair, if she was just as pathetic as Zuko chasing after Mai. Or if somehow her conflict was coming from a better, more superior place. It was about betrayal, and Azula was well aware of that. She knew she was not the type of person to fall in love.

Would the lion-vulture fall in love with its prey? Would it heal the bird's broken wing? No, no it would not. And Azula knew that she was a monster, that she had long ago lost anything in her body that made her human. She did not love, she could not love, she could not mend the broken wings of birds.

And, therefore, her desire for Ty Lee had to be purely physical.

That was all.

That was all.

That was all.

Azula made it out into the courtyard to find her brother. She imagined he would continue sulking in his room until his trial, but apparently he has been allowed to leave. On a tight leash, however, Azula presumed.

Then she squinted at him as she approached, her lips pursed in confusion. He was...

"Why are you gardening?" Azula asked coolly as she laid eyes on her brother, approaching him from behind. "I'm sure we have people to do that for us. Or did you lose your honor in the hedges?"

Zuko scoffed at her low punch in the remark about honor. He had been dealing with Azula for some time now, and was getting awfully tired of her attitude. They did not get along as children, yes, but they were children and children change.

He would wager that, while all children are cruel, only a small percentage of them grow up remaining just as cruel. Azula was the kind of person who regularly fit neatly into a small percentage of various populations. She never did like being in the _majority_, unless that majority directly benefitted her.

"I am gardening because I like to be. And because I can. And because my own father might have me burned alive in front of an audience in two weeks," Zuko said through clenched teeth, his words warbled and distorted.

He expected Azula to just brush past him, but, instead, she sat down beside him. Even risking getting her lovely training clothes dirty or grass-stained. Zuko looked up briefly, and their golden eyes met for a flicker of a second before Zuko returned to the cautious and careful transfer of a fire-violet to its new home in this healthier, less shady side of the palace gardens.

"Why are you moving that flower," Azula asked, pointing ferociously at it. Zuko bit his lip, rolled his eyes and finished reburying the roots.

"Because those people you mentioned who we have to garden for us suck at their jobs," Zuko replied slowly before moving to pick up the dented watering can. "All of these were going to die, where they were planted."

"So... when did you become so fond of flowers?" Azula asked and Zuko realized it was the first _real _question she had asked him since she dragged him home.

"I like them because they are always happy, they don't ever judge or whine, and they never complain," Zuko said, gesturing to them. "I wound up getting interested in the topic when Uncle's old annoying friends told me to go dig up the garden if I wasn't going to do anything worth doing. It kind of worked. It's nice, I can be alone, and... You don't care, at all."

"No, I do. It may seem like a useless skill but perhaps one day we will be attacked and invaded by the _Plant Nation_, and only you will be able to negotiate with their ─ _Aack!_" And throughout the garden rang the sound of wet dirt colliding with Azula.

Zuko had no regrets. Not one.

"You asked me to tell you and I told you," Zuko said coolly and Azula squinted at him, trying to ignore the strong, thick taste of dirt in her mouth. "I don't want to play your games again. _Ever_. We're adults and maybe you should act like one."

* * *

Ty Lee woke from her nightmares about drowning in blood and found herself in bloody sheets. The panic suddenly struck her as she kicked and thrashed at the blankets. Trying to shove them off of her body, feeling hot, wet, her nose filled with the coppery stench of death.

Of watching that girl. Of... of...

"Are you alright?" demanded a voice as the door opened. It was not one of the guards who usually barged in while Ty Lee was having some kind of fit.

Ty Lee had already befriended those assigned to watch her. One of them she particularly liked; she was a lovely woman named Jin. Friends everywhere she went, Ty Lee even had friends in the Boiling Rock before she was chained to the ceiling in solitary.

Life was too short to not at least try to be happy, or not try to make other people happy.

Even when you have lost your mind and your liberty.

"Azula," Ty Lee said, removing herself from the bed and throwing herself into the stunned princess's arms. Azula rubbed her back awkwardly before seeing the stained sheets. "Azula, I'm bleeding to death."

Azula tried not to laugh, which she knew would be inappropriate. She had just been hit by the memory of Ty Lee explaining to her what her monthly bleeding was, when Azula thought she had contracted a deadly illness. She lacked a mother, and never invited a mother figure into her life, even when father tried to impose them on her.

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm going to, uh, draw you a bath," Azula attempted, helping Ty Lee into the bathroom and hoping that helping her out of her clothes would not trigger anything worse.

Princess Azula was not born to nurture; she was born to destroy. She did, however, know what situations required. Sometimes she would have to be tender to coax the little rabaroo into her trap. Or so she told herself as she heated the bath water and made what she presumed to be soothing noises.

She watched servants clean up the bed as she studied Ty Lee.

This was worse than she initially feared.

* * *

"Do that harder," Mai moaned, and she was obeyed.

Her back arched, the man she originally resisted before realizing that she would be smarter to make the best of her situation instead of attempting to wriggle out of it inside of her, thrusting forcefully with no restraint. It felt good, the rhythm, the intensity, the forgetting.

It was probably exceptionally fucked up to have gone from the bed of a man's daughter and then snapped into sleeping with him. But it was a distraction. It was a distraction from how extremely numb Mai was, and she would not apologize for it, nor would she even scold herself.

There was no shame in making the best of an abysmal situation.

And he initiated this time anyway, so it wasn't as if Mai was jumping on both of them of her own intent.

It was when it was over, once the sun had risen, that Mai pulled away and lay down and thought for a moment about the two prisoners they had in the palace. Zuko awaiting trial, Ty Lee awaiting a possibly worse fate.

"I'm going to see Ty Lee," Mai declared, not expecting to be questioned, not expecting a hand to seize her waist as she moved to go locate her clothes.

"Why? What do you even gain from her?" Ozai demanded and Mai heard the very familiar tone of _jealousy_. Agni did this family have jealousy problems, and they were inescapable. She would probably hear something very similar from Azula after visiting Ty Lee.

"I'm curious," Mai said honestly, not bothering to tack on a lie. "She's not Zuko, and I'm not interested in her for any reasons other than her being my best friend. It's not wrong for me to want to find out why she betrayed her... nation."

Her Nation that Mai tired of often, even if she was most likely not allowed to say that, being its Fire Lady. Mai's disagreements were kept silent, even though she remembered being a little girl before her parents beat all resistance out of her, as a little girl saying things that were quite treasonous.

Of her treasonous thoughts becoming genuine venom when she was told what she was going to have to do when she was _fifteen_.

He was silent and so Mai said, "Let me go. At least try to trust me once or twice."

"Be quick," he said and Mai was startled that criticizing him would cause her anything but a headache.

She left her bedroom after getting dressed and went down the halls with a purpose. When she arrived at the door, she saw the guards who were meant to watch over Ty Lee.

"How is she?" Mai demanded as soon as they rose from deep bows. Azula would demand they grovel... so would her father. Mai enjoyed that kind of thing, but she did not care enough to force it on people.

"She's a wonderful girl," said one guard before quickly closing their mouth. "I mean, she's an amicable prisoner."

"Mhm," Mai brushed past, paying no mind to the comment, to the guard's relief. "Ty Lee," Mai said as she walked in, knowing better than to enter rooms unannounced. "Ty Lee, how are you."

She was in her bed, her knees on her chin, crying.

Mai had never seen Ty Lee cry, even when she hurt herself doing acrobatics. Or when she was genuinely sad. Or even during her long, tortuous captivity before she was taken from Azula.

And Mai had to fight the urge not to vomit at the sight of her old friend.

"Azula was here," Ty Lee said, surprisingly articulately, as she sat up.

"What happened?" Mai inquired.

"She... she helped." Ty Lee looked as if she could barely remember the recent events. "I..."

Ty Lee trailed off. And then she was so quickly gone.

The most present, loving, abhorrently bubbly person Mai had ever known was a vacant, hollow shell of a human being.

Mai could identify the feeling she hid inside of her.

_Hatred_.

* * *

After her disheartening morning with Ty Lee, Azula was gazing out of the window when she saw Mai's reflection, hazy, walking into the room. Princess Azula had barely spoken to her since she returned from claiming Zuko, and from destroying what she thought was the last of the rebels.

"So, you clearly didn't have the most fruitful conversation with our good old friend who we let them torture until she lost it," Mai remarked as if the situation was gleefully funny, yet in an apathetic tone that somehow made that _even more _offensive to Azula.

"I didn't _let_ them," Azula snapped and Mai cocked an eyebrow.

"It sure seemed like it to me."

"Have you just come here to exercise the newfound power you have now that you've given birth to a little heir?" Azula snarled before sighing. "Ignore that comment; it was petty."

Well, that was the most of an apology Mai had ever gotten from Azula. Which clearly meant she was even more troubled by Ty Lee than Mai had originally assumed.

"She's a wreck. I already checked in on her," Mai remarked and Azula's eyes flashed.

"Are you two together now?" Azula snapped, before again taking a sharp breath. She was starting to feel herself lose it, but at least she was not as insane as Ty Lee.

"Azula... Tell me why you're fighting so hard for her," Mai said, walking to the sofa behind Azula and sitting down. The princess still did not turn away from the shiny window.

"I want her to love me. And I want my crown. And I have decided to try to make her a proper Fire Nation Citizen again, impress my father and all will be well," Azula said clearly, having put much thought into her case.

"Mhmm... You two loved each other once, huh?"

"Sort of," Azula said, shaking her head. She supposed it was Mai and it could not hurt to admit to her what she already knew. "There is not any room for ambiguity."

"Well, you know that the world is a lot easier to see in black and white," Mai said, shrugging and pretending her words were meaningless.

Azula looked at her, spinning away from her pensive gaze into nothingness. "What? It has worked for plenty of people who have come before me. Grey? What the fuck am I supposed to do with shades of grey when I'm expected to make choices as Fire Lord someday?"

"So, you convince yourself, as usual, that your shortcomings are all just going to help you when you inevitably rule the country," Mai said coolly and Azula examined her with a clenched jaw.

"I don't know what to make of that. You're no traitor," Azula stated vehemently and Mai shrugged dismissively yet again. It took every last ounce of self control within Azula's body to not burn her or strike her down with lightning at that moment.

"I think that this issue is a lot more complex than you want it to be. And I think the cost of keeping Ty Lee is a lot more than you can afford," Mai says softly as she pushes herself to her feet.

"Of course I can afford it! I conquered cities and nations and killed people in order to finally get what I want! I _deserve _her!"

"No one said you didn't. Go on," Mai said calmly, waving her hand at the door. "Go get what you deserve."

Azula, agape, just walked away, burning two cabinets on her way. Mai stared, rather blankly, after her, watching the princess try to justify and justify.

Maybe only people on the outside could see clearly, Mai supposed.

* * *

"Are you ready?" Azula asked softly, checking in on Ty Lee.

Her pounding on the door had made the acrobat shoot up, screaming. Azula stepped back slightly, unsure what she did to warrant such a response. She _knew _she was a frightening person with an intimidating presence, but the past few months before Ty Lee and Azula were forcibly separated by Ozai were so tender.

Yes, Azula had been... cruel.

Ty Lee had been... angry.

But they did have something in a world where that something was certainly not acceptable. Azula invited herself further inside, looking at how Ty Lee's smooth skin was shining with the sweat stuck to it.

"Nightmares?" Azula inquired, knowing that face. Being familiar with that face when she would gaze at herself in the mirror, choking on water she rushed to her lips with her trembling hands.

"I'm fine," Ty Lee said, which was not the answer Azula was looking for. But it was an answer, all the same. "I'm fine. I'm, I'm ready, Azula."

"I want you to make our case one that the tribunal cannot turn down," Azula said primly as she walked into the room and allowed herself to be illuminated by the moonlight pouring brightly through the window.

"Is that usual? This has to be something that just needs paperwork," Ty Lee rasped, pulling the blankets over herself. She hid her body now, Azula noted. She never did that before, and it was not as if Azula had not seen her or touched her or ran her tongue over every exposed inch.

"No. My father is making me jump through every possible hoop," Azula said plainly, as if it did not bother her. "I should have the right of any other conqueror, but, I must adjust to what is thrown into my path and not let it displace me."

"What are they afraid of?" Ty Lee asked quietly, wishing the lights were on. Or perhaps that the window was open. She did remember opening it so that she could feel fresh air on her skin for the first time in so long. No, no, but she closed it after she started sensing the beasts of her imagination creeping up on her from out there.

"My father is afraid of me," Azula admits. "He shouldn't fear me, but he has every right to... and most people do. I've decided to move forward with the concept of my rehabilitation of you."

"Your _rehabilitation of me_?" Ty Lee asked, furrowing her brow. Her head was so sore, so sore. Everything always hurt these days. Ty Lee could not remember what it felt like to not be in constant pain.

"Yes. I'm pointing out how you had cracked under your treatment. It's true. You have hallucinations, paranoia, and are a threat to my father's empire and his new regime after the cleansing of the comet," Azula said as she cautiously sat down beside Ty Lee. The acrobat pulled her legs towards her chest and Azula tried not to frown. "You need to be cared for, healed, made _right_ and able to operate in society again."

"But you people made me this way. I was fine before," Ty Lee insisted and Azula inhaled sharply. "I'm not _crazy_, Azula. And I love my country."

She reached out and seized Azula's wrists, clinging desperately to her.

"I don't think you're crazy," Azula said sweetly before leaning and kissing Ty Lee very gently on the lips. For the first time, she did not shy away from the touch. "I think you need help, though. And if I'm able to say I'm doing _that_ for you, that I'm making a broken, wounded person whole again and placing her back into proper society."

Ty Lee did not know what to say. "I'm broken? After I lived my life for the Fire Nation, I went to their schools, and their..."

"I didn't make you a traitor."

"Do you _honestly _think that you were ever the victim here?"

Azula clenched her jaw. "Ty Lee ─"

"You _betrayed me_, Azula! I didn't _betray _the Fire Nation! You held me in your arms and told me it would be okay but you just left me in the Boiling Rock to be tortured," Ty Lee snarled, sitting up on her knees and letting the blankets fall down around her body.

"I'm sorry. I didn't understand that I was meant to coddle you and tell you that you were the center of my universe," Azula snapped, Ty Lee's words provoking her.

Ty Lee's eyes swelled with tears and Azula inhaled sharply.

Perhaps she was not the best rabaroo trainer.

Perhaps she was not the best person to love Ty Lee, either.

* * *

_**AN:**_ _Alright, I do not ship Mai/Ozai, I ship no one Ozai, I ship Paying-For-His-Horrible-Crimes/Ozai. But I've gotten many reviews asking if Mai is happy with him, and while I don't think Mai is ever really "happy" per se, I like to think that, while Ozai is clearly an awful husband given The Search, Mai would not really stand for being like raped every night or something, so I do want to show that she made the best of the situation, and is not like in a horrific situation. Ty Lee is already messed up enough without that._

_That said, Ozai marrying her is still super gross, and is meant to be super gross, so, please don't think I'm condoning their marriage. I just wanted to respond to said reviews, and give a glimpse into Mai's situation. And I chose to do the Mai/Ozai marriage because I've been really fascinated by the idea of her (fanon-suggested) arranged marriage to Zuko shifting to him after Zuko becomes a complete traitor, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. _


	6. Taming Monsters

**Chapter Six: **Taming Monsters

* * *

Azula was shaken from her fight with Ty Lee when she left the room and ordered servants to help dress Ty Lee for the hearing in an hour's time. The princess needed to find something to keep Ty Lee calm and tranquil during the trial, because Azula could not lose this trial. But she did not think that she could make the rattled and traumatized Ty Lee comprehend that if Azula lost, Ty Lee would be executed.

Ty Lee was useless now, which was why Ozai gave Azula this chance. It was the same way he told Zuko that he could return home if he captured the Avatar. Because Ozai knew that it was futile, yet it would make him look as if he were merciful.

Three weeks, they had spent three weeks together that were almost blissful. But they were also a lie.

* * *

_It was the last night of the three weeks Azula and Ty Lee spent together after the executions of the rebels._

_"Azula," Ty Lee said as the lay in bed together, intertwined. Azula had never felt so alive in her entire life, and she knew that she was right to have spared Ty Lee and negotiated to enslave her. "Azula, I have to tell you something."_

_ The princess looked up, studying the intoxicating and sweaty woman beside her. And she nodded._

_ "Anything," Azula said slickly, drawing Ty Lee nearer to her. That only made it harder for the acrobat turned slave to voice._

_ "I'm with you because I want to be protected," Ty Lee said softly and Azula was confused to the core._

_ "What do you mean?" Azula whispered, thinking of the thousand kisses they had shared over the span of three long weeks. All of this time in which they remembered a lost childhood love, that would have been forgettable if not for this climax._

_ "I mean that this is all a lie, and I'm having trouble living with that fact," Ty Lee said quietly as Azula broke away from her. "I just wanted to be safe, and so I... played along."_

_ Azula was agape, not able to believe that _she _could be manipulated. She was a master of using people, there was no way that Ty Lee could have tricked her. Ty Lee who was a moron who only talked about boys and make-up and Azula could trust her because she was not able to trick the princess._

_ Or to betray her._

_ Azula said nothing, unsure what she could say. But she just had to look at Ty Lee to know that every sick, poisonous word that her slave just said was true._

_ And so Azula had Ty Lee sent to the Boiling Rock._

* * *

Azula shook off the memory that kept haunting her. It did, even if it was painful, remind her of why Ty Lee was in the wrong and could not act as if she was so fucked up. If anything Azula was the victim, and Azula was doing something kind and _selfless _by petitioning to tame the rebel who had been turned into a _monster_.

A monster like Azula. Perhaps she had more in common with Ty Lee than she would have liked to believe. Azula was a monster and she was proud of it. She was such a beautiful monster, and humanity was for the weak.

As was compassion. And Azula knew that her desire to fix Ty Lee was not compassion or love. It was the desire to be on top of her. It was the longing for control and leverage and all of those other pretty things.

Azula did not care who would get hurt.

And so she was a monster.

* * *

_Mother. Watching, walking away. Azula did not understand the feeling she had deep inside of her, as she ran. She could hear mother crying to Uncle, saying such things about her young daughter. _

_ "I don't know what I did..." _

_ Azula clenched her jaw._

_ "Monster..."_

_ Azula walked into her room and tried to remain strong. She was stronger than that. _

_ Father. He entered without knocking, and he was the only person who ever dared to do that. Azula burned other people who did, but she trusted father. Not like them._

_ "She's not angry at you," he said as he shut the door. "She's angry at me."_

_ Azula did not know how to respond. She did not have words for that._

_ "It's hard," Azula whispered, hoping he would not be ashamed of her weakness. "It's so hard."_

_ "What's hard?" he asked cautiously._

_ "To have her look at me like I'm a monster. She should look at me how she looks at Zuko. Or how you look at me. I've never done anything to her." Not true. A lie. The reason mother was crying was because of Azula's relentless cruelty to her._

_ But Azula was only that way to her because there was no one else she could take out that pain on. There was no one else that would give Azula that repercussion free release._

_ And that made her a monster. So be it. So be it. Azula was a monster and she was fine with that distinction._

_ She wore her monstrous presence like beautiful war paint._

* * *

Ty Lee used to be afraid of monsters under her bed. Eventually she was afraid of the monster in her bed. And now? Now she realized how nice it was when the monsters were metaphorical, and not vivid hallucinations that stalked her relentlessly. Now she was afraid of the monsters in her head.

Monster under her bed, could be there. Ty Lee had scars on her legs and they might as well have been from claws that shot out from beneath her. Monster in her bed, came into her room and now pretends she wants to _help _Ty Lee. But Ty Lee did not want Azula's help. Because Azula's help came at much, much too high of a cost. Monsters in her head. Ty Lee was the most concerned about them.

Bed. Bed. Head. _Why was the last one so much worse?_

Bed. Bed. Head. _Why did the last one scare her so much more in the dead of the night?_

She could remember those three weeks with Azula, when she would lie awake after their sex. Ty Lee knew that her only method of survival was to cling to Azula and those remnants of real feelings that the cold, emotionless princess had.

Ty Lee thought she was so lucky, to be able to manipulate the manipulator. She would be more than willing to fuck her if it kept her safe from the fate of the other rebels. And Ty Lee could work her hand with the informants she had in the city.

Because Ty Lee was not just a refugee taken in by rebels. Because Ty Lee was not a stupid little girl who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Oh no. Ty Lee was just as calculated as her sweet, deluded master.

Even with the monsters in her head.

* * *

The trial came quickly. Too quickly for Azula _or _Ty Lee's liking.

Azula had been to only one trial in her lifetime, and it was from the throne. There was a table laid out, with chairs ─ two of them. Restraints rested on the table, as more of an intimidation tactic than being there for the intended purpose of keeping the defendant held down.

The princess strode confidently inside to get a look at the faces of those watching her, as she forced Ty Lee into the chair beside her and settled.

Her father was behind the flames, the judge was on his right, the other observer on his left. On the sides of the room were jurors, not that they would be getting much of a word in. It was all set up to seem as much like the trial of a criminal as possible.

That would be how Ozai would play his tiles. Azula briefly, while the judge was distracted, looked up and locked eyes with her father.

He winked at her.

She clenched her jaw.

Ty Lee did wind up injected with something that made her extremely dizzy. But she also felt quite comfortable and content as she rested against Azula's shoulder, falling out of her chair with her eyes slightly glazed over. Some of the jury members were staring, but Ty Lee could only think truly happy thoughts.

Wow, she wanted more of this when the trial was over. It felt so very good.

Azula, on the other hand, was more alert than she had been in some time, and focused intently on her father and the judges, the jury of important military officials. They were all prepared and set up to intimidate, but Azula knew better than to be intimidated.

"I would appreciate you making your case, princess," the judge said and Azula realized her father was of course not in charge here. He was just presiding over it, watching like a very smug spider-fly that has just seen a moth-beetle get caught in its web. Watching from behind flames and shadow, like a coward.

"Of course," Azula said swiftly, clasping her hands on the table in front of her. It had a chipped and smudged outdated map of the world on it; this was still a war room, even if it was often out of use. "I am here to make my case on why I would like the custody of a prisoner of war."

"And what is preventing you from doing so?" the judge drawled, not caring remotely, even though he was given the privilege of a lifetime to be able to judge the _princess, _the _crown princess_, of the Fire Nation.

"There are, as you all know, laws in place that say, while spoils of war, including slaves and prisoners, are up to the conqueror or leader of the regiment that rightfully gained them. The exception is for prisoners who may have important information, have affiliation with the rebels, _or _have affiliation with people in the homeland who may be sympathetic to them," Azula lists and then stops.

"You have forgotten one," protests the observer on Azula's father's left. "There are also restrictions that no slave may be in the possession of someone who could be a sympathizer towards them, or has a past relationship with."

"That law tends to be neglected in the case of rewards granted directly by the Fire Lord," Azula said smoothly and the observer thought for a moment before recalling previous cases of runaway children who were given to their parents, under the orders of Fire Lord Ozai. "He will of course stand by his word like a man of honor."

"I did give permission for the girl to be a reward, so long as she was given a proper trial, like anyone else," Ozai said calmly and no one seemed thrown off by it. Or perhaps they were just hiding their expressions for fear of _disappearing_.

"Thank you, fa-your highness," Azula said, quickly correcting herself.

"So, you protest the original reasons she was barred from being your rightful spoil to take?" the judge inquired.

Azula nodded. "It was presumed originally that Ty Lee ─ the prisoner ─ was withholding important information. However, she underwent several months of torture, and I interrogated her personally multiple times. I don't believe she knew anything in the first place. Look at her."

Ty Lee waved with a drunken smile. Oh, Azula thought that it was a good choice to have her drugged before bringing her along.

"And did the interrogations bring any information?" the judge asks.

"No. And now, at this point, she is beyond broken. Her mind is gone, mostly, and she has no real memory of her former self. There is no way that she could be a threat, and she, I believe, was not much of a threat in the first place," Azula said smoothly and she thought their faces may have been in agreement.

"If she is broken, why do you want her?" the observer protests.

"Well, you see, I am a creative woman. And my military accomplishments speak for that. If I melted down all of my medals I could make a statue of myself to scale. Bragging aside, I am a creative woman who likes the idea of molding a broken mind to be as I would like it." Azula paused for effect. "While I was searching for my brother, I came across something of a good deal of interest. The Earth Kingdom's special forces. The Dai Li. Their brainwashing techniques were impressive, to say the least. They were able to bend people into the citizens they wanted."

"Yes?" murmured the observer.

Ozai tried not to express discomfort. The reports and captives Azula had given him on top of Zuko were top secret. But of course she would use them like a weapon, as she saw fit. He taught her too well.

"I want to create my own techniques, and I want to prove that she can be put back into Fire Nation Society. I want to tame a rebel, and she is perfect for me, _because _of the fact that I have a past relationship with her. I know her mind, and she trusts me." The last parts might have been lies, Azula was unsure, but she said them with conviction. "Allow me this liberty, and society will reap the rewards."

The room was silent.

Azula added, "I want what is best for my country. By the time I'm Fire Lord, I am certain we will be in the next phase of the war. Fire Lord Sozin started it, Fire Lord Azulon transformed the Fire Nation into an industrial machine of conquest, and beat the Water Tribes and Earth Kingdom into complete submission. My father struck the final blow. I will be tasked with building an even stronger empire from the ashes. I believe that this knowledge will be of use to me and others."

That sold it perfectly. Azula wished she could save her father's face forever. She did truly drive it home with the reminder of her royal status, and how much people liked the idea of her ascending to the throne eventually.

They ruled in her favor.

* * *

After the trial, Azula helped Ty Lee to her bed and lay her down on the mattress.

"Are you okay? I think they may have given you too strong of a dose. They didn't properly account for your very low weight," Azula said and she was not sure if her concern was genuine or not. Ty Lee was confusing, and now Azula had to prove that Ty Lee was a _project _and not something Azula wanted to follow through on.

Azula did not want to find out if she could transition Ty Lee back into Fire Nation Society.

Azula wanted to find out how Ty Lee had convinced Azula that they were in love, and _manipulated _her.

It was a selfish cause, and not a noble one.

But Azula always got what she wanted.

"Are you mad at m-me?" Ty Lee slurred as Azula started to walk away. She reached for Azula's arm and missed.

"No," Azula said softly. _Yes_, but she did not want to overwhelm her very mentally unstable slave.

"Kay, okay, Zula," Ty Lee murmured and Azula was hit with the realization that Ty Lee had no idea where she was.

Azula tried to ignore the nickname, the slight smile.

Ty Lee was nothing more than an obstacle, someone to toy with and fuck and then turn into a trophy of Azula's brand of cruel mercy.

Behind the mask of attempting redemption, Azula would have her revenge.

Even if thinking about it made her queasy instead of excited when she saw Ty Lee passed out on the bed.

* * *

"It didn't go well, did it?" Mai asked softly, and she could not tell from his expression what he was thinking.

"No, no it didn't," Ozai replied as Mai slipped much further beneath the blankets without noticing. "I expected her to do well, and I expected her to earn the right to enslave that girl. But I thought it was something she wouldn't like. I saw how broken she was."

"Then why didn't it go well?" Mai inquired, trying to hide her genuine curiosity. She, every day, was thankful for her parents beating her emotions out of her.

"Because it only occurred to me after the trial how dangerous this is. I thought she was just a little girl who wanted an expensive toy she did not realize would bore her or hurt her. I think I was wrong. But that isn't anything you need to know, particularly when you are just so close to her," he said before walking to the bed and lying down.

"I might be able to... sway things," Mai offered and Ozai was quite confused by that. He has never thought of her as particularly loyal to him, even with the son between them.

"Why would you want to?" Ozai asked, his hand resting on her waist.

"Because I don't like any of this. It feels wrong, and I think that Ty Lee is trouble in a thousand ways," Mai replied, lying by omission and by omission only.

"Whatever makes you happy."

Mai did not know what to make of that comment.

But she did need to know what had suddenly changed Ozai's opinion of the situation with Ty Lee and Azula. It could not be good. Something that could make him think that Azula's loyalty or health or power were in jeopardy was something that Mai could not imagine _Ty Lee _being a part of.

There was certainly a good deal going on that Mai did not see.

And perhaps that Azula did not either.


	7. The Reason for Living

_**AN:** Warning for a somewhat disturbing and/or heterosexual three paragraph sex scene. It's skippable or skimmable, but there for later chapter reasons (else I probably wouldn't write it)._

* * *

**Chapter Seven: **A Reason for Living

* * *

Azula found Zuko where she expected. He was gardening even further, even more obsessively.

"So, plants never complain or talk back?" Azula's lips curled when he flinched in surprise.

"Yes," he said coldly before returning to his work.

He lost himself in it, and Azula could admire that. She could only lose herself in grand goals that she imagined would take her to the heavens. Mai lost herself in apathy and Zuko... _plants_.

"I'm sorry about what's coming tomorrow," Azula said softly and Zuko just shook his head.

"I've been looking around." He thought of Mai on that swing set, welcoming him to her nightmare. He thought of Ty Lee's screams that echoed through the night, as if she were being tortured all over again. "I think that there are worse things than death."

"Oh yes?" Azula crossed her arms in disbelief.

"It's worse to lose your reason for living."

And Zuko spoke no more.

* * *

Azula had been working with Ty Lee for a frustrating amount of time. It was impossible, and Azula had so little patience. She thought this would be easy. She had her claws around Ty Lee for so long that she thought she could put the pieces back together in an instant.

"No," Ty Lee murmured as she at last fell back into her bed, and refused to continue Azula's planned exercises.

The princess got onto the bed and looked down at Ty Lee. She moved to shake her shoulder and remind her why she had to keep living.

But instead, she chose to kiss.

But instead, she chose to slide up onto Ty Lee's hips.

Azula did not know how to express this in a way other than the physical. Not because Ty Lee would not understand, but because Azula could not control the thoughts plaguing her. She was straddling the exhausted but alert girl that she was meant to turn into a proper Fire Nation citizen.

Ty Lee must have been feeling pleasure, because her fingertips brushed against Azula's hips and she wanted her to _move_, to do _something _other than the torment of just desire and fear.

And so Azula kissed Ty Lee's shoulder, and swirled her tongue around where she found her most sensitive. But the response was far from as pleasurable as Ty Lee thought it would be. But Azula was slipping down, kisses, her tongue, very messy. Ty Lee did wonder if she fucked often enough to be slipping up, or if she went dry more than she would admit.

But then Azula's tongue was the sole thing that Ty Lee could feel, amongst the pain. And Azula's focus on so gently forcing her prisoner to moan and gasp and be in _pleasure _instead of ceaseless agony by licking and sucking helped absolve much of the guilt and fear she felt.

If Ty Lee could feel _this_, she could one day feel happy and bubbly, right?

Her sore fingertips, the ones that had the nails torn from them again and again and again, brushed against Azula's head, and there was a moment between them of utter affection.

Or maybe it was a lie. Ty Lee forgot all of her torment in a brief and ecstatic release.

And Azula say there for a little while, at the foot of the bed. Ty Lee fell asleep with no regard for the other person in the room, but Azula did not blame her.

Ty Lee had suffered enough, and Azula knew she was going to have to come up with more ingenuous methods to transform her ward.

* * *

"Tell me those weren't your moans," was the first thing Azula heard as she tried to glide through the palace living chambers and go to sleep. "Tell me you're not taking advantage of a girl you had tortured into insanity."

It was Mai. Sounding as if she was so exempt from ever harming anyone.

"They were hers," Azula said coolly. "I talked to ZuZu this morning."

"Oh, wow." Mai had nothing to say to that.

"I think that losing your life isn't as bad as losing your reason for living. I always have a reason. Right now it's Ty Lee. Zuko's was flowers, or something, I wasn't really paying attention; he's going as senile as Uncle. My father lives to oppress everyone in existence. And you?" Azula looked Mai up and down. "You don't even live for my little brother. Or anyone else. Or _anything_ else."

"I don't deserve this." Mai had no idea why she was being attacked out of nowhere, save for Azula having built up nerves from Ty Lee.

Azula paused. "You don't deserve me ranting at you. But you _do _deserve your unhappiness if you do nothing to change it."

And Azula strode away, as Mai clenched her jaw and went to her own rooms to retire.

* * *

"Do you honestly think that my daughter can cure what amounts to a shell of a person?" Ozai asked quite skeptically. In front of his advisors, and anyone else of importance, he expressed assuredness that Azula was prepared and doing important work.

But he could doubt her to the young woman lying on the lounge across from him, just staring at the wine he offered her. She didn't like it. She thought it would be better with some sugar, but Mai never did want to voice that immaturity.

"I think that Azula will stop at absolutely nothing to get what she wants. I also think that it's Azula's fault, and she won't do Ty Lee any good until she admits that," Mai said quietly and Ozai examined her, knowing the reality of the situation.

Azula broke her, but Azula somehow thought she could put it back together. He had broken things of hers before, just to show her what could happen, and how nothing in this world was invulnerable, including her. Perhaps it was cruel, but now it was clearly a lesson she needed to learn.

Mai thought, as she lay there, about how wonderful things had been between she and Ty Lee and Azula. How they thought that their little group that had always been, would always exist, until the very end.

"Zuko's trial," Mai said before deciding that she regretted those words. But she would rather be discussing it than the task Azula had infinity to accomplish, but Zuko only had a few days for his fate to be decided upon.

"I'm not sure how it will work out," Ozai lied and Mai averted her eyes. She wanted to be more defiant, but passivity was so much easier. "But I think I would like to keep him alive. Do you want to keep him alive?"

Mai thought about it, in all honesty, for a few moments.

_"Welcome to my nightmare, Prince Zuko. I hope you enjoy your stay."_

"I don't care. I'm sure he moved on with the rebels. There was that girl."

"Is she still alive?" Ozai seemed much too pleased about that.

And Mai realized at that moment that he did not trust her in the slightest. Despite the misery she turned into something bearable. Despite the baby son they had together.

"I'm not into him," Mai said softly and Ozai still looked at her with doubt.

With the doubt and jealousy that he did when she held a four minute conversation with a boy her age. He met a dismal fate that Mai did not care about, but she _did _care that no one, including him, trusted her for a second.

"I'm sure," Ozai said, setting down his empty glass. And with that, he left and went to bed wordlessly, leaving her to her own devices.

Part of her wanted to go see Azula, part of her wanted to check on Ty Lee, part of her wanted to figure out the right way to say goodbye to Zuko. But logical won in a mind that had become far too cold and detached for its own good, and she just followed him and took the easy route.

She did not bother with much grace, tossing her clothes onto the floor and climbing into her bed, the hot night that made her dark hair stick to her neck. Lying there, the questions of what she should do danced behind her eyes.

No one had ever been important to Mai before. Except for those three who were in way, way over their heads. And her son, her baby, he was important to her. But he was safe, even if he did need a mother. Those idiots were going to get themselves killed within the month.

She moved through the silky sheets, wanting to forget. Wanting to forget that she once had things she considered worth fighting for. That she remembered Azula's hypocritical speech to her about how losing her life was far better than losing any reason for living.

He accepted her into his arms, but certainly not without cost. And she was more than willing, to maybe find her reason for living here. Her hands traced along and down his chest, void of any of those obsessive thoughts as she stroked his cock.

There was not much of a response from either of them, but she did continue and eventually the thoughts chased her. These of Ty Lee begging her to do things she could not do. And Mai kissed his shoulder, and ran her lips further down, until he grabbed her by the hair and forced himself into her mouth.

That was forgetting. That was forgetting as he fucked her throat and she preferred the pain and panic of her body over the realities dancing in her head. He was in one kind of bliss, and she was in another, and that was perfectly alright for them.

He did what pleased him with her, and she was fine with that. Sex with Azula was always much more complicated. He just wanted to choke her with his cock, and there were no intricacies or power plays involved in that raw desire.

Mai realized, as he finished with her and she was cast aside, she preferred being a lifeless doll than trying to find rhyme or reason.

Maybe Azula was right.

That was a frightening thought.

* * *

Ty Lee's aura was the color of dried blood on a split lip. It once was a beautiful range of pink and sunset, radiating from her, making her brighter than the sun. But now, she did not even want to move from her bed, even though the nightmares chased her there, of course.

She felt somewhat blissful after Azula came to her, but the afterglow faded and Ty Lee realized that good sex could not cure or undo years of torture, or cure the crazy that Ty Lee felt she had become.

Maybe Azula beside her, holding her hand, taking baby steps would be right.

But Azula had no patience for that.

And so she licked Ty Lee out instead, and hoped that counted as several steps.

They were all so fucked up in the palace.

And tomorrow, even Ty Lee knew that Zuko's life was going to be decided upon.

Azula woke and knew that her brother was likely about to be assigned a brutal and certain death. Father would find some sort of excuse to have him executed for aiding the rebels. There was no skirting around that fact, and it made Azula _hurt _for some reason. She was not quite sure why it hurt, but it did.

She was not sure how she wound up sleeping at the foot of Ty Lee's bed, but it felt vaguely pleasant. It should not have, because last night she was riddled with incredible guilt.

Ty Lee's eyes flickered open as well and Azula saw that there was life in them before she realized where she was. There was this slight amount of the way Ty Lee looked at mornings, and looked at days.

"Do you still like them?" Azula asked, forgetting that Ty Lee could not hear her thoughts.

The princess spent too much time alone. Or with Mai but Mai was the type of person who just fucked you and then forgot about you, not that Azula had much of a problem with that. Azula was not the type of person who was meant to become attached, or to open to others.

It was that change in herself that scared her. Ozai might have given the order to his daughter after seeing that Azula wanted to be _with _someone instead of just destroying them. Love would poison her, earthly attachments would not allow her to fly.

But all of that sounded kind of nice, when she was lying in this bed, hidden from a world where she had to spearhead a nation and uphold her status as a conqueror. She was just looking directly into the eyes of her sweet, sugary downfall.

"Mornings?" Ty Lee suggested and Azula's eyes flashed in surprise. "I like them. I used to like them because they were so excited, and another day could bring so many good things with it. Now I like them because it means I lived through the night."

"That sounds like a reason to hate them," Azula said before realizing it was likely not productive towards her task of taming Ty Lee. "How are you about last night?"

"I want it to extend to today," Ty Lee said softly, a flicker of that smile on her lips. A grin that did not care _at all _what other people thought. A happiness that could not be penetrated even by Azula's harshest blows.

"I... Zuko's trial..." Azula murmured.

"Don't go," Ty Lee said and Azula was impressed by how lucid she was. And also unnerved by it. "You don't have to, right? Don't go."

Azula watched her brother be burned with glee. She watched Mai walk down the aisle with a smile on her lips. She did not say goodbye or give a reason when she let her father send Ty Lee to the Boiling Rock, to come back covered in the scars that Azula wants to touch so badly.

"I won't," Azula said, and she hoped that she would not regret it.

Maybe she did not, because Ty Lee kissed her fiercely on the lips, and Azula kissed all of the scars she might as well have put there.


	8. Interlude: The Way She Was Before

**Interlude: **The Way She Was Before

* * *

Azula and Ty Lee were in her room talking about birds and eyeliner and moving to touch each other again when the trial ended.

Mai was in awe, but she did not look it. She could not believe that Ozai had spared Zuko... or _somewhat _spared him. Giving Zuko a chance to live seemed even crueler than giving him the hope of capturing an Avatar who was definitely long gone.

She was with her son, making up for avoiding him for several days. He was a cute little boy, Mai had to admit. Of course she had to admit. During that afternoon that she spent playing with him, she felt far from at ease, but able to distract herself.

Fire Lady Mai never had a maternal instinct, and she was sure she was missing a biological clock. _But _she did love her child. Azula pried and pried and pried about if Mai had felt forced, or if Mai despised Ryzu. It was a reasonable enough question, although Mai was certain that it had a _lot _to do with Azula's mommy issues.

She spoke to Zuko as soon as she was able. Mai avoided him, save for a few words exchanged and that day on the swings. But she had to at least say something. Sure, he was long gone and she realized that it was not real love anymore after so many years, but he meant something to her.

Or at least the name and concept of Zuko meant something to her.

He felt the exact same way.

"You're not... executed yet," Mai said slowly and Zuko shook his head.

"Not yet. But I'm pretty sure he's just dragging it on for as long as he can. I have one day and night before they finish the trial. And I guarantee you that it will finally get him what he wants." Dejected, desponded, detached. Zuko was not supposed to be anything of those things.

But Mai should not be who she was right now anyway. Not the person who just set her child down the moment she saw her childhood crush being ushered into a holding cell disguised as a parlor.

"One night is enough to figure out something to say," Mai insisted and Zuko had no clue when she became so optimistic.

In fact, he had no clue who she was anymore.

"You ruled in his favor too," Zuko said honestly, since he had nothing to lose. "You clearly are so happy with my father that me being killed must be a relief. Then you won't have any messy feelings to get in the way."

"I have no feelings. Do not accuse me of that. And don't act like you didn't move on. I saw the Water Tribe girl," Mai said guiltlessly and Zuko looked at her with a slack jaw. "Yeah. I don't care. She was hot, and you can do whatever you want. Don't try to make this into some kind of love triangle."

"I'm not," Zuko lied but it was not at all convincing. "Of course I... we were kids."

"My point exactly. And now I have a kid," she said, gesturing at the little boy biting on a half-broken toy, "so how about we just call it a clean break." But her eyes, Zuko could swear, wanted what he did.

He saw a girl in a cage, but she did not even notice the bars. Or maybe she did, but she was comfortable with them. Had gotten used to it, or something else unsettling along those lines.

Or maybe she actually loved his father. Zuko felt like a monster for hoping she was in agony and misery over the marriage. He should not want her to be in that kind of situation, and if he really loved her he would not have preferred her being violated just so he could win her back.

"It's not a clean break if we're having this conversation," Zuko said fiercely but Mai shook her head without a second thought. "I love you."

"_How_?" Mai asked, and Zuko thought it was the most inflection he had ever heard in her voice before. "There's no way you can love me when we've exchanged ten sentences in the past ten years."

She stood up, and Zuko felt deplorable again for wishing she was leaving because she was confused like him. But he knew that she was not, and he knew that she did have a point.

Mai was a person, and Zuko could only see her as a desirable idea.

He should probably have stuck to flowers and mint leaves.

* * *

Azula began training Ty Lee to be human on a cloudy morning. It was unpleasant, and Azula felt so unproductive after shirking her bending practice. And so, she decided to attempt breakfast with her Ty Lee, her slave. It could not hurt, to be honest.

Ty Lee stared at the food as if it were something completely alien. She did not seem to even understand the concept and Azula had no idea what to do with this girl who once had fake tea parties and was a bright person who somehow gained energy from being with others instead of having it drained from her.

Now she was such a hollow echo of the girl Azula once knew. The girl Azula condemned to her dreadful fate.

"Do you still love the Fire Nation, Ty Lee?" Azula inquired, and it, deep down, she knew, meant, _'Do you still love me after I sent you off to that horrible place?' _"I wouldn't have let that happen if my father hadn't ordered it. Of course, I take responsibility for agreeing with him, but you would as well."

Ty Lee gazed at her, blinked. She did not know what to say, but she knew that Fire Lord Ozai was rid of her because she threatened to corrupt Azula somehow. They did spend all of those hours in her bedroom, the curtains closed and unsure if it were night or day.

"It wasn't love," Ty Lee said slowly as she looked up from her plate. Her voice sounded unused, even though she has begun speaking to her guards, befriending them even. "We were obsessed."

Azula, on one hand, wanted that to be true. But on the other, she wanted to think more highly of herself than father or his wife both do.

"Just tell me," Azula said forcefully, not realizing how she always seemed to speak to others as if they were slaves. Ty Lee was one, she knew, but Princess Azula had no compassion.

She had certain skills hammered into her, and she exercised them as she finished Sozin's work. All Azula was now was a calculated, selfish, remorseless weapon of war. That left her with no room for empathy, no ability to give a thousandth of what she took. It might not have been her fault, but that did not make it forgivable.

"Fine, I... you are my master or owner." Those words might have been agreeable once to Ty Lee, if they were not literal as they were now.

"Do you not prefer me sparing you?" Azula asked and her callousness was stemming from concern. From fear, but Ty Lee did not know what Azula was afraid of.

It probably was not invisible reptiles and imagined hands on her body. It probably had nothing to do with Ty Lee waking up and trying to break free of bonds on her wrists that did not exist.

"I think you spared yourself the pain, because you have always been afraid of losing people. I think that you think you have to own me to get me to stay, instead of being the person people want to stay with."

"What happened to our sweet little morning?" Azula spat and Ty Lee looked down.

"I wish I could live in that moment forever but it isn't..." Ty Lee shook her head, because Azula was already ordering for her to be sent away.

And Ty Lee cried because she loved Azula, and it hurt much worse than the torture to see that Azula was as hollow as Ty Lee was.

* * *

It was not even noon when Azula locked herself in her bedroom and drew the curtains to lie down in the shadows.

Azula had one memory in particular that never stopped repeating itself in her head. Sometimes it was more vivid, and other times it was blurred and faded. But it was always the same one.

It smelled like autumn, even though it was currently springtime. And it filled her with the kind of happiness that made her hurt because it was gone.

Because she knew she would never be happy like that again, and so remembering it made her regret. Regret things that she could not have possibly controlled.

_Ty Lee seized Azula by the hand and the princess did not know if she was supposed to let go. They are twelve and their childhood crush, that their mothers fawned over and they took no trouble to hide, had become something that was more endangering to their futures._

_ But Azula did like how the acrobat showed no fear, and so, as the autumn leaves fell, withered and in brilliant golden and red hues that matched the tones of the Fire Nation, they walked together, abandoning Azula's guard (whom quickly caught on, muttered words of discontent to each other, and followed a few steps behind)._

_ "Okay," Ty Lee said as she viciously crushed a leaf beneath her foot. "The Earth Kingdom's trees turn these colors too!"_

_ Azula cocked an eyebrow. "You mean they don't turn green and tope? I had no idea. And the Water Tribe's seaweed is bright blue, of course..."_

_ Ty Lee giggled even though Azula was clearly insulting her intelligence._

_ "I just found that out yesterday," Ty Lee whispered, as if it were some great secret._

_ Azula wrestled with her words before she allowed them to escape. "I like it when you're stupid."_

_ They became very close to a kiss when they wound up aware of the heavy footsteps behind them._

_ Spies, not just bodyguards, spies. And so Azula and Ty Lee broke apart and, still holding hands, went to go find one of those vendors that sold the cinnamon and apple cider._

That was love, not obsession. That was the kind of person that Ty Lee wanted to stay with, and that she followed everywhere and wanted to kiss her even though it could get her killed.

It was not obsession.

Azula lay there, unmoving, in the darkness.

When Ty Lee left for the circus eight or nine years ago, she kept waving and waving but Azula had her fingers on her lips because she had been kissed by Ty Lee and suddenly just wanted to yank her back and not let her.

Ty Lee was crying and smiling as she waved.

Azula realized not long ago that she might have been crying because she was never coming back.

At least not as who she was before.


	9. Three Lightning Strikes

**Chapter Nine: **Three Lightning Strikes

* * *

Zuko's trial did not go as anticipated.

It would have gone far differently if Azula had listened to her sweet little spoil of war and not attended. It would have gone far differently if Zuko did not have a bitter sensation of acid in his mouth about the fact that Mai did not want his help.

How could she not need to be rescued?

He thought it would preoccupy him until he actually stood in a throne room that felt strange and alien; it was nothing like how he remembered it. Perhaps because there were so many people gazing at him, scrutinizing him before he was even able to say a word.

Of course he knew that this would not go well. Of course he knew that he would be executed at the first opportunity.

He glanced up at Azula out of the corner of his eye and she averted her gaze. That made little sense to him, but the sounds of the trial began before he could say a word.

"You look ashamed, Prince Zuko," father said and the words were well chosen. _Shame_, the use of his title instead of any familial connection, yet the sort of thing a father would say after catching his son breaking a vase.

Zuko took a deep breath. "I deny nothing."

It sounded as formal as he could make it. A few other words, a few quick questions here and there that Zuko barely managed to keep up with.

"If you deny nothing," said the Fire Lord and the room became silent, "then why do you think I should allow you to live? That's the question here; that's the point."

"I think that it's up to all of you if I die or not, and I don't care because what I did was against the law but it wasn't a choice I was given." Zuko glanced up at Azula again, as if she had something to say on the matter. "I'm pretty sure that the grounds on which my sister is allowed to keep a traitor involved in my work alive and well because her concubine, girlfriend, I don't know the right phrase, had no choice other than working with the rebels. Because she was stranded from the Fire Nation."

"She was penalized by a year of torture. Would you like that?"

"I had four."

"You can't think that chasing the Avatar to keep you busy compares to the abuses of the Boiling Rock," and that was Azula's voice shaking, and that was Zuko smiling slightly to himself, because he knew that if he was going down today, he was going to bring his sister and father with him.

"Right," Zuko said before looking away and not giving her a chance to give a persuasive speech. "I won't stand down today because I'm not stupid enough to think that I was going to avoid death for very long once my mother wasn't able to stop it anymore."

Oh, and there was Ozai faltering for a split second amongst the disruption of the crowd.

"That has nothing to do with your crimes against your nation. You could have chosen against them, and everyone here is aware of that."

"I stood by the people who were loyal to me. More loyal than the Fire Nation ever was. And I'm not going to back down at the last minute."

"The inflexible steel breaks first," Ozai said, although his calm demeanor was troubled.

"If this is a kind of negotiation," Zuko stated with more confidence than he has had in a very long time, "I'd like to know if you want anything other than my death, Fire Lord Ozai."

"That is what I want because it is what you deserve. Just like your traitor uncle, and your traitor friends. If you don't want to give your loyalty up to the dead, it seems you should join them," said the Fire Lord and it seemed that he thought those were winning words.

They were, Zuko supposed, of the trial. But the trial was going to end with Zuko's execution or brutal imprisonment no matter what the disgraced prince said, and so he decided to say exactly what was on his mind.

"I guess I got pretty attracted to the dead, since I was dead the day she was born. Or maybe I was dead before then, since I'm pretty certain she was created as a replacement. It just took a lot of time to get rid of your mistake," Zuko said, the words he had practiced over and over in his mind for them to sound strong, articulate, to say what he wanted to say. "The whole reason you even thought it was a national priority to keep looking for me when I wasn't exactly that much of a threat to you was because you wanted to erase your own mistake. Go ahead. You can now."

The silence in the room deafened.

It was broken, however, when someone struck. No one could see exactly who lashed out first with a red blaze that consumed the room in a violent heat. Because Zuko had just charged away from the guards holding him in place, and neither father nor son wavered to kill each other right there and then.

As the smoke began to clear, the absurd sight of Zuko's hand lunging forward, an angry fire moving up over his elbow, was enough to stop Ozai for a moment. The boy could not have possibly learned that by gardening.

Three more steps, three near collisions, and the chaos meant nothing to them because they were alone against each other.

Zuko forced himself forward with no thoughts of defense or care for what he did, because he was dead anyway. And the lack of desire for survival was an advantage in any fight as he knuckles bled and his heels wanted to snap.

The block had Ozai holding his son's wrist, or maybe the other way around.

They both stared, and one of them was going to strike until the fight ended prematurely with the crack of lightning.

Zuko was hit and fell to his knees with the blinding pain surging through him.

Twice more. Twice more before he was unconscious.

* * *

Azula held up her hair with one hand as she attempted to splash her face with the cold water.

The rest of her was smoky and pulsing with adrenaline, and she needed it more desperately than anything. She stripped off her clothes and washed the rest of herself a little too hard before dressing again and sitting down on the foot of her bed.

She did not kill him. That was ridiculous. It was a necessary act to stop he and father from both dying at each other's hands.

Of course, her daze was interrupted by the entrance of an unwelcome family member.

"You should have killed both of them," Mai said and Azula thought she heard that wrong. It was not how any sane person would react.

"Why?" Azula asked and Mai stared at her for a moment.

"You really don't know? Huh. If you killed them both, it would look like an accident, and you'd be Fire Lord," Mai said calmly as if she were not talking about the deaths of her family.

Not that no one had killed for power before. Perhaps Mai was more adjusted to the royal family than Azula herself was.

"I love my father," Azula said and Mai slowly shook her head, because it was so shallow, hollow and rehearsed.

"I know you do. But not more than you love power," Mai said before gently shutting the door and walking to Azula. "He's concerned about Zuko."

"Because he's dead?"

"Because he's dead, but his body vanished."

"Stop fucking with me."

"I'm not. I'm guessing that it was someone with some kind of vengeance or one of his idealist friends." Mai hesitated. "I don't want to celebrate it, okay? I don't think he deserved that, but I'm not going to lie about the fact that it's better him than me."

Azula did not know what to make of that. "Better him than you? Who would kill you? There would be no reason."

Mai shrugged.

"I don't know, but it's not like anyone is ever safe here." She did not seem to _care _much about that true assertion, but Azula did not mention it.

The princess just leaned forward and kissed Mai because it was the only thing in her life that was not changed by the comet. Mai was always there, and never changed much, not the way they touched each other, or her opinions.

The comet made Ty Lee a rebel, the comet brought Zuko home to his destruction, the comet took everything Azula had known to be true and burned it with the Earth Kingdom.

And how was she supposed to handle that?

She could, however, handle the raw sex.

* * *

Ty Lee woke, screaming and tearing at her blankets.

The visions in her dream were more devastating and confusing than they had ever been before. She had such chills and a burning sensation that she could not handle. Ty Lee choked on tears and sobs that she did not have the state of mind to conceal.

Despite her lack of lucidity, she did see the door open, and her captor came in. Maybe not her captor; Ty Lee did not know what she was to Azula. All Ty Lee knew was that life hurt but she had to keep going because she believed that everything would be okay in the end.

"Do you need anything?" Azula asked coldly, the words still uncomfortable in her mouth despite how much she has put into helping Ty Lee get better.

"Just more nightmares," Ty Lee whispered before lying sideways across her bed and trying to sink deep into the blankets. This world was real and the other was not, and Ty Lee had to remember that.

"Are they getting worse?" Azula asked and she attempted to be compassionate despite her struggles.

Ty Lee sighed softly. "Yeah. But things get worse before they get better, right? They always do."

Azula did not believe that, but she allowed Ty Lee to. Ty Lee stood up, shaking on her feet, and walked towards the mirror and the dressing screen that she cast shadows on.

"Look at me," Ty Lee said through her tight throat. "I look awful. My face is so red, it's horrible! I can't believe you even can recognize me! Oh, and my lip is bleeding; that's just awful. No mascara; I look sick or something!"

She rambled for a while after that, and Azula had begun to realize that Ty Lee was moving away from living in a dream world to trying to take back the one she used to have before. Azula could not necessarily blame her, although hearing the shallow rants and fake laugh was more unnerving than the howling and clawing at herself.

"I can put in a requisition for a make-up kit," Azula said icily as soon as Ty Lee was done blathering on and on in order to keep herself from crying. In order to keep herself from sinking into the vivid hallucinations.

"You should. Oh, and these pajamas are so gross. I've been telling your dumb guards that, but they are. Oh! And I'm so bored! I need something to play with if I'm going to be your pet," Ty Lee said as her voice escalated, escalated and escalated.

Azula examined her hands for a few seconds as she tried to think about whether this Ty Lee was an improvement. No, this Ty Lee _felt like Ty Lee _and therefore was an improvement. Ty Lee used to care about those things, and even if she was just pretending, it consoled Azula.

"What did you dream about?" Azula asked, and she had no idea why she did, because the last thing she wanted to hear about was some boring dream.

Ty Lee dropped her hairbrush and that crash was the only sound in the room for too long.

"I dreamt about the city burning. And I dreamt about the spirits and so much fire, so much of it and..." Ty Lee shook her head. "It must just be memories of the comet. Except... the city was Caldera and I was so helpless as I just stood there like I always do and didn't try anything to stop it."

Ty Lee's lip trembled and she tried her best not to cry.

"It was a dream," Azula said coldly and Ty Lee accepted that.

* * *

"Azula, you're so sad looking," Ty Lee said airily as she poked at the Pai Sho tiles. She sucked at playing, but she did it anyway because whenever she was alone her thoughts got out of control.

Which was _not okay_. Ty Lee talked so much because she did not want to think for too long or about anything that made her feel uncomfortable. Azula was a temporary seal on the wounds, and Ty Lee accepted it even she was a slave.

"I'm what?" Azula asked, leaning back with her shoulders rolled into a position of power.

Ty Lee chewed on her fingernail before saying, "No. You just look tired is all. Everybody does though and stuff. I heard about those gross weird natural disasters in the east. Or the west? Yeah, it's the west."

Azula did not say much. "Well, I've had trouble sleeping lately. Maybe you could make it easier."

Ty Lee rubbed her finger on the lotus tile once before complying to Azula's guised request.

* * *

Azula stared at the flowers.

It had been a week or so since Zuko was proclaimed dead and that uncertainty ended. The rebels were contained in prisons or as such things as Ty Lee, or executed. Father should have been so comfortable, but he was not.

She thought he was becoming somewhat paranoid, but she avoided him and drifted through the palace, wondering if she should have done what Mai continuously denied saying. Ty Lee got board games and Azula played them with her and tried to ignore the purplish exhaustion in Ty Lee's eyes.

Azula stared at the flowers and realized that they were actually weeds.

"Does no one take care of this place?" Azula asked the vacant courtyard before exhaling the humid, brisk air of the morning. "It's shameful to leave the palace in such disarray."

Princess Azula kicked at the dirt to cover up the weeds, but she bit her tongue.

They looked like an eyesore that could not be ignored.

She glanced over her shoulder and knelt down to try to figure out just what these flowers were supposed to be. It was because she wanted the palace to be prettier, of course, because she wanted to brighten up such a dull dismal place. It was because she wanted to avoid continuing the torture of trying to help Ty Lee heal when Ty Lee did not think she was broken.

Azula picked the weeds and burned them.

The morning was even more quiet than the ones on which she would bend for hours.

Plants never complained or talked back, after all.


End file.
